Luke Drozd strives to produce work that is instinctive, rich and varied. His practice takes on a multitude of arts disciplines that include fine art painting and drawing, illustration, performance and ephemeral works. Seen here are two bodies of work by the artist: Cut-Out and Keep and Hole-In-One. The Cut-Out and Keep series was born out of impatience and distraction, which subsequently became a method of wasting time that took on a life of its own. Constructed by carefully cutting round the line drawings found in old colouring books before flipping them over to reveal a new image, a drawing is made from the removal of material and negative lines. The choice of what is deleted and what remains is largely intuitive and it is only once cutting ceases that the paper is turned over to see how, and if, the created image works with its partner on the rear. Hole-In-One is a series of works designed to explore ideas of repetition, frustration and a search for perfection within art. These works are created by attempting to continually draw the same circle through paperback books, each chosen for their visual and contextual allegories. The Jerwood nominated Hole-In-One No-4 form part of a series based around pelican and penguin books, with the current ongoing series made from trashy Mills and Boon novels; the heads of the male love interests deleted. These drawings become something that is about both construction and destruction, recalling memories of school-based punishment, part penance, part cathartic and nostalgic ritual, whilst continuing to look at ongoing notions around deletion and the parts of life resigned to the cutting room floor.
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Drozd was born in Derby in 1981 and now lives and works in London. He studied BA Fine Art at Leeds Metropolitan University and is currently studying his MA at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Solo exhibitions have included the closing party for the Scottish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale where he did a live drawing performance; Scotland’s Six Cities Design Festival; the 2007 Jerwood Drawing Prize and Dazed and Confused Gallery, London. He also works with a variety of arts collectives including The Werewolves of London and Leeds and England based Black Dogs. His client based work is broad in scope ranging from designs for bands and t-shirt companies to commissions for Sony Playstation and Warner Brothers Records.