Daily Drawing Diary

Miss Understood

Page 8 from the catalogue for To There & Back Again - Catching The Spaces In Between. To order your copy click here.

Pen & Ink On Paper, 20cm x 30cm

RP: She was doing her lips at the table and we just caught her.
DCR: It could almost be a still from a 1950’s film.
RP: I did feel the drawing had a very filmic quality to it.

Extra Thin

Page 7 from the catalogue for To There & Back Again - Catching The Spaces In Between. To order your copy click here.

Pen & Ink On Paper, 20cm x 30cm

DCR: You’re commenting here on Middle america eating and drinking too much junk food.
RP: I’m particularly interested in the food issue. Because of the way it is largely produced in America, those on lower incomes tend to suffer from obesity and diabetes. The ‘extra thin’ bread is not a cheap shot at her weight issue. It is a cultural observation about a food chain that is based on addiction to processed foods. Money, lack of education and responsibility all weave through this issue.

A Different Kind Of Horse

Page 6 from the catalogue for To There & Back Again - Catching The Spaces In Between. To order your copy click here.

Oil & Gold Leaf On Canvas, 90cm x 120cm

RP: He was speeding along in his electric wheelchair. The myth of old cowboys – they’re now driving pickup trucks rather than horses. Texans are very good at myth-making.
DCR: So much of their culture, and so much of the outside perception of that area in particular, is built on myth. What you’re actually presenting us with is quite a nostalgic view.
RP: Probably the myth that I think Texas was rather than is.

Their Friend Ol Sparky

Page 5 from the catalogue for To There & Back Again - Catching The Spaces In Between. To order your copy click here.

Oil & Gold Leaf On Canvas, 90cm x 120cm

RP: When I was driving to Huntsville I was quite happy mucking around in the car with some friends, and we didn’t think about what we were going to see, and then inside it kind of blew me away, sitting in front of a device that has killed 361 people. It’s like their friend Old Sparky because they choose to keep the death penalty. You are completely awed and revolted by it.
DCR: and the fact that they’ve given it some kind of fond nickname…

Extracting Dirty Tears

Page 4 from the catalogue for To There & Back Again - Catching The Spaces In Between. To order your copy click here.

DCR: What you’re actually getting at with some of these drawings is that fight between man and nature or the environment.
RP: West Texas is a flat plain with just scrub, a few trees and oil dirks by the million, and they’re just pumping all day long. The drawing has nature in the background, i suppose to overcome the fact that the oil was being extracted. it smells of a substance called H2S, which is a lot like sulphur. If you can’t smell it, then you’re being poisoned. The locals, they can’t smell it.

Mariposa Streets

Page 3 from the catalogue for To There & Back Again - Catching The Spaces In Between. To order your copy click here.

RP: ‘Mariposa’ is Spanish slang for gay. Houston is the third biggest gay centre in the States, yet up until a few years ago, Texas had a law against ‘homosexual conduct’. The state is full of contradictions. It has so many oil dirks but is also the biggest producer of alternative energy. There’s an ongoing tension between liberalism and conservatism.

To There & Back Again

Page 2 from the catalogue for To There & Back Again - Catching The Spaces In Between. To order your copy click here.

A dialogue between Rob Pepper and David Cleaton-Roberts April 2008.
The text running through this catalogue is based on a conversation between the artist and David Cleaton-Roberts, a director of the largest publisher and dealer of artists’ prints and editions in europe, and a board member of the International Fine Print Dealers Association (iFPDa). The conversation took place at the artist’s studio in April 2008.
RP: I love america, I’ve always been fascinated by it, especially Middle America.
DCR: There seem to be a lot of comments on food. You’ve said this drawing was an observation, but looking back I wonder whether actually it became a critical judgement?
RP: Many poignant conversations I had in america were on the subjects of the environment or food. But I didn’t make a conscious decision at the time to capture stereotypes…
…This work is a construct of two different drawings. I had seen the gentleman at an american football game, and the roadhouse is where we had a burger on the way back from that game.
DCR: So by merging two drawings, actually you can’t help but cast a critical judgement.
RP: Possibly, and that’s a step away from the art that I’ve done before.

A Letter From America

Page 1 from the catalogue for To There & Back Again - Catching The Spaces In Between. To order your copy click here.

Austin, Texas, 2008

Dear England,

How are you?

Over the past two years we have spent a total of six months in Middle America. We initially came to do an exhibition in Houston, which led to illustrating a book. Then we were asked to exhibit in Dallas and again in Houston, and along the way we created a book of drawings called “The Texan Compendium”. During this period we’ve taken time to record and get to know a little of the country. We wanted to experience some of its vastness for ourselves and at the end collate a series of images that reflected our thoughts and feelings on the land that’s home to the American Dream.

Texas, the Lone Star State, is around six times the size of England, and we’ve travelled around a fair amount of it. As if reflecting the vast expanse of land, the food portions are huge and the people hugely varied: we’ve eaten mule deer steaks with self-professed rednecks under pecan trees and macrobiotic meals with college professors at shared tables in liberal Austin.

And then there are America’s eccentricities. We’ve met the alcoholic goat mayor of Lajitas, a border town on the Rio Grande; been to the largest church in America (25,000 people attended that Sunday); shot a .357 magnum; watched the sun set on the compound outside Waco where David Koresh and 73 others battled the FBI; and cringed listening to the karaoke at a gay cowboy bar in Houston. We’ve even spotted George Bush Senior a couple of times.

It has been a privilege to spend time here, and the people have always been incredibly hospitable, but like with all countries, certain issues niggled. As you might notice, themes of food and the environment run through the American pieces.

The images here have all been experienced first-hand over the past couple of years on the journey ‘To There & Back Again’; they represent some of the many spaces that have been caught in between.

We hope you enjoy them, and as they say here in Texas…Happy Trails.

Rob Pepper & Aimie Littler

To There & Back Again - Exhibition Catalogue

From fast food joints to old men in slippers, the “To There & Back Again” exhibition which opens on 8th May includes a new series of paintings and drawings that create a cultural comparison of two countries. The show explores my fascination with using drawings to capture the essence of communities and includes moments from our modern day grand tour of Middle America, as well as our subsequent return to Middle England.

Comprising around 50 pieces, the exhibition will bring together the most important images from each side of the Atlantic. It’s my largest display to date, showcasing my comparative observations, processes and thoughts.

To accompany this show we have produced a 50 page catalogue that contains letters from Middle America and Middle England alongside a dialogue with gallery director David Cleaton-Roberts. Over the next month rather than publishing my daily drawing I’m going to publish a page from the catalogue day by day. The catalogue itself has been sponsored by Land Securites and is free at the Gallery but if you’d like me to send you a copy then there is a £5 post & packing fee. Click here to order.

Horizon Lines

Rob Pepper
Pen and Ink On Paper
40cm x 30cm.