Drawing Dust

In this paper I will be discuss my recent practice based research project where I am examining dust particles in collaboration with scientists at The Natural History Museum in London. Over the last few years, through my fine art practice, I have become increasingly interested in exploring the concept of dust and its physical and metaphysical implications through drawing. Dust is everywhere, it is in the air we breathe and on the surfaces we touch. Within its constituents lies a microscopic world that can tell us about human experience and reveal stories about life and history. It is only through science that we are able to make visible this otherwise invisible world, however, what interests me as an artist is how the technical image that emerges from this scientific approach looks unlike from anything we know about the world we live in. It is this disconnect between the image emerging through science and how we experience the world that drives me to take the technical images into the practice of drawing, to transform this scientific information through the material process and imagination of drawing, re-connecting with a more human, understandable way of knowing, through the slow pace and material body of graphite.