Guy Burch led this session of the Unit. Andres Canovas provided these notes about each pose.

“Don’t draw what you see, but also what you don’t see, what comes into your mind”, a kind of “go beyond the obvious”, and also an exercise of active imagination.

Pose 1: I had in mind the Greco-Roman decorative figures of athletes and dancers that work in repetitions. I would have liked to do a third figure.

Pose 2, included in gallery above: I saw Narcissus in this pose, drowned in his own reflection. The reflection was achieved by folding the paper to get an imprint, but I touched it up later. The colors are symbolic of the water and the passion. The text reads: ‘death by love’ and ‘killed by his own image’

Pose 3: Tomaso’s hands and feet turned into bird’s claws over a monstrous head and wings under it. I did two rather abstract drawings focusing on the invisible. They may not be the most enticing drawings to watch, but doing them set me free, somehow.

 

Pose 4: Saturn devouring his children. The pose itself and Tomaso’s efforts to keep the pose reminded me of Goya’s picture of the same title, only upside down.  I included a red figure between his hands, representing one of Saturn’s children been devoured, and exaggerated the model’s arse hole that I associated with the constant flow of births. The text reads : ‘eat them all’, written also upside down. I was later surprised when Tomaso described his new project.

Pose 5: the Minotaurus. I represented the moment the beast realizes that he is nothing but the incarnation of his parent’s monstrous sin and runs away deep into the labyrinth that will both protect and jail him. Text: ‘hide in your maze’ and ‘be there free’

 

Some of the interim poses:

Pose 9: Icarus. Tomaso kept on changing his arms, from spread flat on the floor to holding his back. That became Icarus’ melting wings on his flight to Heaven. The trembling position was perfect for Icarus’ fall. All that was needed was the screaming face and the yellow color of the sun. Text; ‘too close’ and ‘ fall free’

 

Pose 10; I saw the ancient Egyptian cycle myth of night and day / life and death. The head has got the color of the sunrise, the feet have the color of the sunset, the floor those of a river and above all, the night sky with some rudimentary stars.

Pose 11: the Centaur. I associated Tomaso’s legs disconnection from his torso with the centaur’s figure. Should I have more time I would have developed a second figure/object that the centaur was helping/attacking.

Pose 13: for the last pose, I was out of tune, focusing exclusively on what I saw. However, the freedom I allowed myself previously showed up on the way the color is applied and how it combines with the black ink.