Drawing Water

Believing that drawing is a mechanism for exploration as much as a tool for representation, Kovats brings together drawings by map-makers, writers, shipbuilders, whalers, soldiers, sailors, artists, archaeologists, cartographers, scientists, uranographers, engineers and dreamers – a diverse selection united by the sense that in making the drawing they were looking for something.

A selection of Kovats’ own drawing and writing anchors the book which attempts to construct, in the artist’s words, ‘a portolan, a chart drawn at sea to guide a sailor from one safe harbour to the next’.

Kovats makes drawings, sculpture, installations and large-scale time-based projects exploring our experience and understanding of landscape. She is best known for Tree (2009), a permanent installation for the Natural History Museum in London; and Rivers, an outdoor sculpture in the landscape of Jupiter Artland outside Edinburgh. This new exhibition focuses on her fascination with the sea.

Drawing Water follows Kovats' recent solo exhibition 'Oceans'at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh.