I went on a deep dive over Hilma Af Klint. I have seen her series 'the ten largest IV', exploring life stages, once in the Netherlands and once in London a few years ago and havent stopped thinking about them. In a lecture with DS she was brought up again and I thought I would give this some thought. I want to try and apply the framework established by Mary Yacoob’s analysis of Hilma af Klint to assess my own paintings and drawing practices critically. I aim to treat my studio as a conceptual laboratory (Yacoob, 2025), using diagrammatic methods to visualise intangible or invisible ideas, just as Klint explored relationships between matter and spirit, visible and invisible, and duality and unity (Yacoob, 2025).
I am using Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics, which categorises signs into icons (including diagrams), symbols, and indexes (Yacoob, 2025), recognising that my works will contain a blend of these characteristics (Yacoob, 2025).
I love the idea of my studio or practice as A CONCEPTUAL LAB!!!
The core of this critical analysis focuses on three areas:
1. Iconic/Diagrammatic Function: I am interrogating whether my paintings primarily function as diagrams—icons that make relations visible (Yacoob, 2025). A diagram should resemble its object through a ‘skeleton-like sketch of relations’ (Yacoob, 2025). I must ask if my practice is successfully abstractive, meaning it filters out irrelevant information to focus the eye on structures that reveal significant information (Yacoob, 2025). Does the flow from left to right fullfill this? or the growth of a plant...
2. Symbolic and Communicative Intent: I am questioning the use of symbols and annotations. Since symbols rely on working general rules or conventions (Yacoob, 2025), I must assess if my individualised marks or abbreviations are too private, requiring a high degree of interpretative attention (Yacoob, 2025), or if I am limiting my ‘free, lofty flights of thought in order to give [my] vision a form that others can understand’ (Linden, 2005: 42, cited in Yacoob, 2025). How important is the understanding?
Here is an example of my drawing work using shapes which have become repeptitive motifs, marks which are symbols and those that are indexes... I am not sure how important this is.
3. Indexicality and the Material Process: I am examining how the material qualities of my work function. Annotations on diagrams are indexes as they direct attention (Yacoob, 2025). Furthermore, I see my rapid, gestural brushstrokes as indexical signs (Morgan, 1955: 53, cited in Yacoob, 2025), which convey the energy and dynamism of the creative process (Yacoob, 2025). I do question how rehearsed these marks are - DS has challenged this several times. This analysis helps me understand how the ‘tone’ of the drawing contributes to the overall meaning (Kenning, 2021: 188, cited in Yacoob, 2025). I am trying to find a tonal balance in the semiotics... what woudl happen if i dont?
Ultimately, I am navigating the risk of viewers getting lost in the ‘pure dream’ of the picture plane (Peirce, 1992: 226, cited in Yacoob, 2025). Is this the element i am uncomfortable with? The landscape, an imaginary space... My aim is to create artistic diagrams that incite fruitful transmissions between imaginative engagement and ‘intellectual sympathy’ (Yacoob, 2025) with the concepts I am striving to convey.
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Reference List
Burrows, D., Cussans, J., Kenning, D. and Yacoob, M. (2025) Drawing Analogies: Diagrams in Art, Theory and Practice. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
