Q&A with Tal R

How often do you draw, and what role does it play within your artistic practice? 

I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. The adults loved it because it kept you quiet. I loved it because I could draw whatever I felt like, which was mostly violence and sex. No one really reacted because they barely looked at what you made. Drawing is still where I come from. I draw every day. I don’t make sketches; drawing is an ongoing practice. It’s a way to test an idea, to see if it holds up; the disappointment you feel when a drawing shows you an idea isn’t very good isn’t as rough as the hit you take when a painting tells you the same thing.

What can drawings express that painting,  text, or sculpture cannot?

A drawing has a built-in lightness, you can just crumple it up. That fragility is part of its strength. You can throw it away or use it to light a small fire. For me there has always been a need for a bridge between language and image, and drawing is the finest version of that bridge. Painting, on the other hand, comes with 500 years of culture and expectations. You’re constantly wrestling with that history, which is both rich and restrictive. Drawing frees you from that.

How do you think about the physical aspect  of drawing within our mostly digital culture?

 For me, a pencil is a sixth finger, it’s always there. I draw constantly, and it’s not necessarily about making finished works. I just think better when I have something in my hands. Drawing has always been a physical way of thinking for me. When you draw, you test things: forms, language, ideas. You ask yourself, is this a dream or not? Is this a good idea or a completely terrible one? And if it is a shitty idea, is it then a shitty enough idea that I need to make it?

Asger Jorn wrote that, “every line drawn freely  is a protest against control.” What forms of  control are you resisting when you draw?

For me, the goal isn’t to be “uncontrolled.” That doesn’t necessarily lead anywhere. What matters is having an idea and then breaking that idea within yourself. When a preconceived notion collapses, that’s where the feeling of losing control appears and that’s the productive moment. On its own, a lack of control means nothing; it only becomes meaningful when ideas falls apart.

How has your approach to drawing changed  over time, and how do you keep a childlike  sense of discovery in your work today?

The link between children and art is discussed endlessly. Socialization and schooling strip away instinct, so as adults we have to rediscover that direct, hands‑on contact with the world. My repertoire has grown since I was a child drawing sex and violence, but the core of drawing is the same: you sit with a blank sheet and ask not, “what should I draw?” but “what do I need to draw?”. If you don’t know what you should do, you ask what you can do naturally. That childlike approach remains the best place to begin.

Portrait photo by Albert Grøndahl
Artworks courtesy of Tal R and Galleri Bo Bjerregaard