John Stanfield

The use of books for drawing in my practice relate to a conceptual notion of what Joseph Beuys saw as the ‘energy’ in objects.
I see books as holding both static and kinetic energy from their beginnings as an organic object grown over time, through to the pulping process turning them into cut sheets of paper and then onto printing presses where words activate their materiality as an object in continuum of exploration.
In today’s digital world where a book’s relevance may have slowed the physical nature of their use, they still hold an opportunity through reactivation to release their ‘energy’.
Using books allows drawing to be a conduit in the realisation of ‘mutable’ forms as object