Drawing Sculpture (Study for Heap)

Study for Heap is an ink drawing on gridded paper that functions as a spatial net and prelude to the sculpture Heap, featured in the exhibition NECROLOGY. As a contribution to Artists’ Drawings Issue No. 1: Drawing Sculpture, Sharples’ Study for Heap evidences a process of sculptural becoming, where mass is diagrammed before its fabrication, and where weight, volume, and shape are flattened into two dimensions and composed by simple lines. Rather than functioning as an accurate plan, the drawing functions as a kind of planular dissection of the structure and sculpture-to-come. It reads as an x-ray of sculptural thought, informed by Beatriz Colomina’s X-Ray Architecture. In this way, the drawing performs an autopsy of space, revealing the sculpture’s anatomy in advance of its body.