TRACE

I am in the process of tracing newspaper headlines. I make a copy of the selected headline by covering the newspaper with a small roll of semi-transparent paper and I draw over the visible lines in black ink.

In my selection of headlines I see a pattern emerging. The headlines speak on the social and economic conditions of life in Britain. I am deliberately avoiding headlines about the personal tragedy of named individuals.


A trace is a mark or a sign left in a particular place. I am creating tracings of newspaper headlines as a method of recording and to examine how much information we are exposed to and how much of that we actually retain.


When we read how much to we remember? What is important today may be forgotten a year hence.

The tracing process  commenced in 2012 and I intend to carry on tracing for a year or so and to exhibit it in a variety of formates at some point in the future.
When viewers can look and reflect on what they remembered.

Do we read to forget? Our minds would be overloaded if we did remember everything.

This process of selecting headlines and tracing the text allows reflection on the wider issues behind the headline. Through the act of tracing I am committing the subjects to memory. 

Tracing is a type of drawing or mark making ...its quite repetitive and takes me into a meditative state....