Outside the Lines

 

Outside the Lines

Outside the Lines is dedicated to young people around the world who have stepped beyond prescribed boundaries to draw attention to ecological imbalance and climate crisis.

The title references the instruction given to children when colouring — to stay neatly within the lines. This work responds to those who have refused that containment, choosing instead to challenge established systems and speak beyond expectation.

Created using both new and recycled wax crayons — including crayons once used by my own children — the pieces are rendered on primed, cotton-covered board in an expressive, gestural language. The material itself carries a generational thread: tools of childhood reworked into statements of urgency and resistance.

The works adopt a loose Abstract Expressionist vocabulary, allowing colour and mark to exceed boundaries. The result is energetic, layered and unapologetically vivid — mirroring the determination of those who inspired it.

The work is composed of sixteen 15 × 15 cm panels arranged as a cohesive whole. Modest in scale individually, each panel carries its own gestural intensity. Installed together, the accumulation generates expanded force — separate elements gathering momentum in relation to one another.

The grid becomes both structure and resistance, containing marks that continually press against and move beyond their boundaries.

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Exhibition History

9 August – 4 September 2019
Tuga, Weymouth, Dorset, UK

4 September – 2 October 2019
The Engine Room, Poundbury, Dorset, UK

30 October – 27 November 2019
The Octagon, Poundbury, Dorset, UK

Outside the Lines toured three venues over four months in 2019.

One of sixteen panels that comprise Outside the Lines. Each panel measures 15 × 15 cm and is made using recycled and new wax crayon on cotton-covered board.

Other works in the collection: