Drawing is how I started with art. As a child of 7 or 8, I drew the face of a mean pirate and hung it on the wall in my bedroom. Later that night, when the lights were out, I saw the face in the dark and grew terrified. This was my introduction to the power of drawing. A quote attributed to Michelangelo is, “Let whoever has attained the power of drawing know that he holds a great treasure.”
But this is also a work of conceptual art, a la Duchamp’ Urinal. Here is the concept:
A dried tree leaf is placed on a white paper napkin on a flat surface. The lights from above are difuse, reducing the shadows and making the entire scene fairly, but not completely flat. Then using several different graphite leads of three different hardnesses, an artist makes many marks on a new piece of smooth, white bristol board. When satisfied that the marks on the paper resemble the scene in front of him, the artist uses a camera to record a digital image of the paper with the marks. This digital image is then placed on a website in such a way that any visitors can download it and view it in their browser. The artist writes about it that it is both a drawing and a work of conceptual art. And so it is.
Statement of conceptual art creation by John Pelham Black 2023-01-03 @ 11:23 EST.