DRAWING: Over the Line

Robyn Jacobs Unknown and Familiar II (2022), Ink and charcoal on rice paper, 70 x 56 cm

Over the line, indicates a concept of twoness, one side and the other, over and under, left and right, north and south, wrong and right. The line is the partition that divides the 2 spaces, it is the demarcation that directs understanding of one and another. The line can be a contested or fought over. But it can also provide stability and reassurance where belief that the ‘right’ side of the line is safe. The line can be used to keep you in, or to exclude you. It can be an obstacle to restrict your movement from one side to the other, real or imagined, or a boundary to be crossed.

A line is a long thin mark which is drawn or painted on a surface (Collins dictionary)

It is a stroke

a mark

a rule

a score

It is also a string, a cable, a wire….

a furrow, a crease, a row, a queue, a file.

A line is an outline, a shape, a figure, an edge, a limit and a boundary.

In this work the line is the horizon.  It marks the surface that separates the deep subterranean spaces below from the light and airy spaces above. Crossing ‘over the line’, the traces move from one realm to the other.