Beth Shapeero & Fraser Taylor

By Lauren Printy-Currie

I see a dance performed on paper. A meandering line of charcoal that could have been attached to a limb. Marks creating by moving around, as we do, to the beat of the day. From each picture to the next, there is an abrupt scene change. I see an interplay between two people that lasts and lasts until it has established a level of its own, becoming its own. I see two people surrendering to the process, trying to leave themselves behind. This is a true constant across the variation of lost bodies on the pages, claiming their space, improvising and rising in inimitable movements. There is a fabric of interconnectedness, acts with consequences, bodies that shiver, pull faces, tick, get in a twirl, become caught up, entangled or remain still and solid. They have claimed this blank space, rising. I see a directness ‘dance’ across every surface. I do not only see the drawings, I experience them bodily too, at times fluid and running in a kind of loop, where the first and last actions feed one another in spatially fragmented choreographies. Touched by something unexpected, colour becomes an arena. These circles, lines, blocks, grids, swathes, strips, stripes, folds, positions, impressions, groups, paths, are going somewhere, getting everywhere. The shape each one finds itself in isn’t the only possible shape it could ever be, I think. I am spending a period of summer away from home, in a place by the sea that is arid, hot, dry, dusty, and salty. But beautiful. As I write this, I see

the calm slick of the ocean blue__
the twinkling of the sun on its surface, stubborn and red behind my eyeballs,
its faint glow at some points gentle, but otherwise ablaze in an aimless white light.
a green beach towel on sand, my impression on it, soft as one another
the blank face of someone who’s had bad news
dirt under my fingernails
red wine in a glass
the pearlescent sheen of the inside of a shell
the pink to white shift of my nail bed as I press my finger onto a hard surface
a woman’s outfit and the optical play where blue meets red

All of these things, not so much to be mixed on a palette but seen. I feel if I were to take their temperature, they would be warm. I see colour as a place or a sound or a feeling or a flag waving, the wind forcing it taut for a moment before releasing. I ponder these drawings together while staring, mesmerised, at the sky, the blue sky, the most accessible place in the world for reverie. I plunge myself inside and warm up.