Title of Image 1: ‘Proposition for Trove: Light Installation/Painting According to Tonal Values’, 42 x 29.5cm, ink and graphite on paper, 2011 Title of Image 2: ‘Proposal for Modernist Teepee in Poured Concrete’, ink and graphite on paper, 50.8
16 August 2012 Submission to: A call for unrealized projects: Agency of Unrealized Projects
Mary Yacoob 76A Ranelagh Road, London N17 6XU, UK Web: www.mary-yacoob.com Email: yacoobmary@hotmail.com
The drawing ‘Proposition for Trove: Light Installation/Painting According to Tonal Values’ is part of a series of drawings that propose large scale installations for a large warehouse gallery site in which the drawings were exhibited. Drawing on top of photographs sent to her by the Gallery Director, Yacoob generated ideas for 3d installations by inventing internal logics within the photographs. In this drawing, for example, colour coded ink lines emanating from the stained windows are matched up to different tonal values within a square wooden panel, as if somehow light projection can generation a painting. In ‘Proposal for Modernist Teepee in Poured Concrete’ the artist uses the modulor system invented by the modernist architect Le Corbusier to determine the lateral and horizontal stratifications of a poured concrete tepee. Le Corbusier’s sketchbook contained drawings of iconic structures such as teepees and ionic columns, often on the same page, as he believed they displayed universal harmonic proportions which he attempted to systemitize scientifically in his modulor system for architecture and urban planning. Yacoob’s proposal is for an artwork that poses paradoxes – raising conceptions of the transient and the monumental, fabric with concrete, chance decisions she makes within her composition alongside her use of the modulor system which itself combines notions of the mathematical golden section and measurement of the human body. Title of Image 1 [left]‘Proposition for Trove: Light Installation/Painting According to Tonal Values’, 42 x 29.5cm, ink and graphite on paper, 2011 Title of Image 2 [right]: ‘Proposal for Modernist Teepee in Poured Concrete’, ink and graphite on paper, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 2011 GENERAL STATEMENT Mary Yacoob appropriates symbolic visual grammars from architectural plans, geological maps, diagrams, and alphabets. Some of her work involves documenting the minutia of daily life in diagrammatic form. In other work, she creates systemic works about architectural spaces that reconsider representations of urban planning and public art through proposals for often unrealisable interventions. Her panopticon project, which incorporates drawing, photography, vinyl floor pieces and etching, explores the architecture and geometry of surveillance and power. Mary Yacoob studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and London Metropolitan. Solo exhibitions include the Centre for Recent Drawing, the Anzac Centre, Seven Seven Gallery and Westland Place Gallery. Group shows include Galerie8, PayneShurvell, Guest Projects and OVADA. In 2011 she was artist in residence at the printmaking department of Camberwell College of Art.
Title of Image 1: ‘Proposition for Trove: Light Installation/Painting According to Tonal Values’, 42 x 29.5cm, ink and graphite on paper, 2011 Title of Image 2: ‘Proposal for Modernist Teepee in Poured Concrete’, ink and graphite on paper, 50.8
16 August 2012 Submission to: A call for unrealized projects: Agency of Unrealized Projects
Mary Yacoob 76A Ranelagh Road, London N17 6XU, UK Web: www.mary-yacoob.com Email: yacoobmary@hotmail.com
The drawing ‘Proposition for Trove: Light Installation/Painting According to Tonal Values’ is part of a series of drawings that propose large scale installations for a large warehouse gallery site in which the drawings were exhibited. Drawing on top of photographs sent to her by the Gallery Director, Yacoob generated ideas for 3d installations by inventing internal logics within the photographs. In this drawing, for example, colour coded ink lines emanating from the stained windows are matched up to different tonal values within a square wooden panel, as if somehow light projection can generation a painting. In ‘Proposal for Modernist Teepee in Poured Concrete’ the artist uses the modulor system invented by the modernist architect Le Corbusier to determine the lateral and horizontal stratifications of a poured concrete tepee. Le Corbusier’s sketchbook contained drawings of iconic structures such as teepees and ionic columns, often on the same page, as he believed they displayed universal harmonic proportions which he attempted to systemitize scientifically in his modulor system for architecture and urban planning. Yacoob’s proposal is for an artwork that poses paradoxes – raising conceptions of the transient and the monumental, fabric with concrete, chance decisions she makes within her composition alongside her use of the modulor system which itself combines notions of the mathematical golden section and measurement of the human body. Title of Image 1 [left]‘Proposition for Trove: Light Installation/Painting According to Tonal Values’, 42 x 29.5cm, ink and graphite on paper, 2011 Title of Image 2 [right]: ‘Proposal for Modernist Teepee in Poured Concrete’, ink and graphite on paper, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, 2011 GENERAL STATEMENT Mary Yacoob appropriates symbolic visual grammars from architectural plans, geological maps, diagrams, and alphabets. Some of her work involves documenting the minutia of daily life in diagrammatic form. In other work, she creates systemic works about architectural spaces that reconsider representations of urban planning and public art through proposals for often unrealisable interventions. Her panopticon project, which incorporates drawing, photography, vinyl floor pieces and etching, explores the architecture and geometry of surveillance and power. Mary Yacoob studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and London Metropolitan. Solo exhibitions include the Centre for Recent Drawing, the Anzac Centre, Seven Seven Gallery and Westland Place Gallery. Group shows include Galerie8, PayneShurvell, Guest Projects and OVADA. In 2011 she was artist in residence at the printmaking department of Camberwell College of Art.