Bob Dylan created a collection of drawings
that were published in a book entitled Drawn Blank in 1994. These expressive works captured Dylan’s
chance encounters and observations whilst travelling on tour between 1989 and
1992, creating portraits, land and cityscapes, interiors, nudes and still life
were done to “relax and refocus a restless mind”.
Ingrid Mössinger – the curator of the
Kunstsammlungen Museum in Chemitz, Germany – came across Drawn Blank during a
visit to New York in 2006. Instantly
excited she contacted Dylan’s team and was thrilled to learn that Dylan would
agree to have his art exhibited in public for the first time.
When Dylan first drew the works in this
series he had intended to create
paintings based upon them. Ingrid
Mössinger’s proposed exhibition encouraged him to now do this using watercolour
and gouache. “I was fascinated to learn of Ingrid’s interest
in my work and it gave me impetus to realize the vision I had many years on”
commented Bob Dylan. These paintings
formed the collection entitled The Drawn Blank Series .
Painting several versions of the same image
using different colours and tones result in a dynamic variety of impressions,
feelings and emotions. The choice and
skill applying a different colour arrangement to the same original drawing
enable Dylan to express hi feeling and perception of an idea or a view,
continually evoking different feelings and reactions and thus creating evolving
works of art.
As Tobias Rüther (Frankfurter Allgemeine
Newspaper) who credited Dylan with successfully translating his songs into art,
commented: “That which he has done for
years on stage, performing new versions of his old songs in order to give a
fresh interpretation , he’s now continuing to do on deckle edged paper”.
The National Gallery in Denmark contacted
Bob through his manager in 2008 and agreed to stage his first major exhibition
in Copenhagen. Bob Dylan regarded The
Drawn Blank Series as a finished project and embarked on a new series of
paintings, sparking an intensive period or work and creativity as he produced a
series of more than forty paintings in a year.
The Brazil Series is an interesting
departure from The Drawn Blank Series and is a product of Dylan’s bravery as an
artist. Encourage by critical acclaim
notable from luminaries such as John Elderfield (Chief Curator of Paintings and
Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art , New York), and Larry Gagosian he
received he was emboldened to experiment and expand his oeuvre. Despite being globally acknowledged as one of
the most culturally relevant individual of today, Bob is at his core an artist,
imbued with self-doubt and insecurity – his own biggest critic.