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What is Drawing Performance?
Drawing performance is a stream of performance art in which artists create their artwork in front of a live audience while communicating with the viewers. Mark making in drawing performance is often a result of powerful physical gesture and body movement that connects elements of line, movement, space and time. Drawing Performance is often multi-disciplinary, combining dance, video, photography and sound. It’s utilises multi-media too, allowing artists a full rein of expression for their ideas.
About Draw to Perform
Headed by artist Ram Samocha, Draw to Perform is a collaboration of acclaimed international drawing performance artists. The celebrated group holds several events and workshops, including an annual International Symposium that unites the world’s foremost performance drawers in a live event and showcases this exciting art form to audiences at the same time.
The Draw to Perform community is truly global and hosts the most prestigious names in drawing performance from the UK, France, Brazil, Germany, Israel, America, Canada, Spain, Norway, Australia and beyond. Some artists are well known for working with certain materials, while others enjoy mixing media and reinventing their art at each new event.
About Ram Samocha
An Israeli by birth Ram Samocha has studied and lived in Israel, Canada and the UK. Moving frequently between counties and cities meant finding and making connections with like-minded artists difficult. Ram’s solution was to set up the international Draw to Perform community, an intellectual, as well as physical gathering of artists to allow for the sharing and exchange of ideas and art.
Samocha’s art utilises drawing as a seminal element as it allows him to work with very basic media. As an immigrant and traveller, Samocha often chooses to work with temporary, flexible, and transportable surfaces and materials. The combination of performance, installation, and drawing facilitates a more precise articulation of ideas and issues and allows him to self‐reflective while examining the relevance of drawing as a modern medium.
Recognised nationally and internationally, Samocha’s work is part of various museums and private collections and has been shown in the UK, Israel, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
International Symposium
Held annually, the International Symposium showcases the biggest names and emerging talent in this exciting artistic genre. It focuses on the connection between performance art and drawing. The International Symposium includes video screenings, live drawing performances, workshops, talks and lectures by artists and art historians.
Collaborative Events
Draw to Perform is also able to curate collaborative events. Goldsmiths University in London hosted Draw to Perform as part of the London Design Festival in September 2015. The event augmented their existing curriculum, inspiring experimentation and drew a new audience from the general public to the art form. Book an event with us
Educational Programmes
For venues or institutions where drawing performance is new, our visits and workshops will allow audiences to experience this exciting art form at close quarters, engaging with prestigious artists and even try drawing performance themselves. Events can be tailored to augment educational syllabuses and curriculum or themes. These programmes are ideal for art colleges, further education institutes, sixth forms colleges, arts venues and festivals. Email us for more information
