Scott Elk
Desire Lines - Reach, 2022
Screen-print on 300gsm archival paper
52cm x 76cm
Edition of 3

This work comes from observing a nude male figure during a life drawing session. Starting it’s life as a small charcoal sketch, this quick gestural drawing has been blown up and placed over a neutral background in a two colour, hand screen-printed process. The idea was to capture the energy of a quick sketch with a composition that extends the energy of the figure into the surrounding area. This work combines my love of both drawing and screen-printing. I have purposely enlarged the Ben Day Dots (a printing and photoengraving technique for producing areas of grey using fine patterns of ink on the paper. It was developed in 1879 by illustrator and printer Benjamin Henry Day Jr.) This element tells the viewer it is screen-print, as opposed to a charcoal sketch, and this speaks to the materiality of the medium which is a big consideration in the choices I make when approaching an artwork.

Desire Lines

The majority of work produced in 2022 falls into my Desire Lines series of paintings, drawings, screenprints, and ceramics. The series is about relationship to place, connection to people, and the sometimes intoxicating, head-fucking connection of physical interaction.

A desire line, is a term often referred to in urban or transportation planning, as a path created as a consequence of human traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. It is the way taken by choice, by desire, and by necessity when following the heart. It is movement with intention.

In a real world practical application, the desire lines have the possibility to connect people resulting in events along a time line. I see people as these spinning vortexes of energy, in a positive sense like galaxies spinning and reaching out, and in contrast, negatively sucking everything towards themselves like black holes spinning. When two of these things collide, wondrous and unexpected things can happen; colours swirl, planets could be flung out of orbit, or set in a new orbit, momentarily or until the end of time. My interpretation of these desire lines is constantly searching to insert the human element of connection into fragmented, and abstracted forms.