Each Line One Breath – Artist Creates Meditative Drawings One Line at a Time

Each Line One Breath is a collection of morphogenetic freehand drawings by Netherlands-based artist John Franzen.  He creates textured artworks reminiscent of wrinkled fabric or water ripples by drawing hundreds of lines from the top of a paper canvas all the way to the bottom.

The process of creating a morphogenetic freehand drawing is a very tedious one. The artist starts by drawing a vertical line on left far-side of his canvas, with an ink pen. He then tries to copy the line as he moves towards the right side. By controlling his breathing, Franzen tries to replicate the straight line as best he can, but unlike those of a machine, the movements of his hand create tiny imperfections. Instead of correcting the mistakes, he amplifies them by copying them with each new line he draws and at the end of this seemingly maddening process, the imperfections take center stage, “revealing wave-motion-patterns transporting energy through space-time, such as any electromagnetic wave, or the pattern of a DNA-replication”.

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