Jeanine Breaker, Central St Martins College of Art and Design
Jeanine Breaker studied at the University of Southern California before receiving a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University of California in 1980. She has exhibited, been an artist in residence and visiting lecturer throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and the UK. She was a Leverhulme Fellow and AHRC grant holder at the Royal College of Art (2002-4) and is currently an AHRC Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts at Central St Martin’s School of Art (2004-7) researching the essence of gesture by combining traditional drawing with new technology. The William Turner Gallery in Bergamont Station, Santa Monica, California, represents her work.
A Man with a Cart and Horses on the Shore, Boats in Choppy Water Beyond 1792-3
I was particularly drawn to the horse and wagon vignette in this drawing because of its energy and economy of line. I was challenged by the activity of copying another artist’s gestural lines, which seemed inherently paradoxical. I found it surprisingly pleasurable, almost therapeutic.
I decided to enlarge the image to see if these lines in my hands could retain their energy at a less intimate scale, and if the mystery of the ghost image to the left would be revealed. The horse’s blank face, the fear in the face of the other, the concept of appropriation of a master, just begged for a ‘Chapman Brothers’ twist.