Original artwork description:

The photo this image is based on is one of the more modern ones in my collection. I say modern, it's probably the 1980s, but compared to my usual bunch of Victorian and Edwardian shots, it really is modern. The photo itself is a snapshot of a fleeting moment, a group of friends, a fancy dress party, a photographic record that ended up lost and adrift on the global flea market of eBay until I brought it into my possession.

This kind of snapshot image and moment really appeal to me. Sometimes, it is enough, I don't need my usual fancy combination of images, a convoluted narrative, the faff of compiling it all into a new composition. Sometimes I just like something simple, albeit charged, and this artwork is one such example of this.

What is their story? Where are they now? Art they still friends? That's all the narrative I need, along with the aesthetics of a flashed photo, faded in time on vintage photopaper. The contrasts, the expressions, the postures, all tell their own story beyond my simple rendering of it.

That is what I aim for in these little moments. An unknowable history now lost but reframed for another moment and purpose in my timeline.

The drawing is made with Polychromos colour pencils on Bristol Board, with matt varnish over the top. It is supplied mounted and framed.

Materials used:

Bristol Board, Polychromos coloured pencils, graphite, ink

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