'These large, landscape-format drawings made principally on the wall in pencil with some traces of pastel and charcoal, were produced in Peckham when the artist was looking after his toddler son. The infant Ivo would scribble on the page alongside his father. Gormley, having drawn the main image, would choose a title, write it out as a single word along the base of the drawing, then add selections from a dictionary definition in pencil. While the choice of the individual words appears significant in terms of his developing sculptural concerns, it also reflects Gormley's haiku-inspired writing practice seen in the texts and word chains of his sketchbooks at this time, and in some of his later published pieces. The preference for short single-word titles is reflected in several of the lead sculptures of this period which have similar names, including LIFT (1983), RISE (1983-4), PEER (1984) and PROOF (1984). It is noticeable how some of these "collaborative" drawings include nature in a very direct way - squashed butterfly wings or mouth imprints on the paper, prefiguring the use of unusual or idiosyncratic natural and chemical substances in later drawings. In reflecting upon the series, Gormley comments: "I loved the whole playing aspect of the drawings - Ivo doodling and chatting, [me following a] stream of consciousness and getting flashes of image from this and the traces on the paper. It was as if drawing was a recorded conversation but free of logic, just playing".'

Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, published by The British Museum Press, London, 2002.