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Archie Fooks – Smith’s work deals with themes of the divine, transcendental states and the occult. He has a shamanic and magickal practice that runs alongside his artistic one, influencing and inspiring his choice of subject matter. He works across a range of media including drawing, sculpture, and photography. His art is often inspired by experimenting with psychedelic drugs, breath work exercises and magickal practices such as summonings, invocations, and manifestations. These works are often diagrammatical in nature, making references to a number of different conceptual frameworks, beliefs and symbols.
In his current series of drawings (from which this work is taken), the artist has taken a break from his normal practice to create a body of impulsive works. The forms visible here are due to each drawing’s experimental creation. Many of the works in the series feature a heavy use of graphite; the result of a preliminary drawing being rubbed out and shaded in so as to create a negative of the original image. By using this process Fooks-Smith creates a sense of depth in which the darkness operates as an empty space, like a room without lighting or even the space perceivable at the beginning of a dream.
This work is based on the symbols marked on doorways between the different chambers of the spirit world accessible via DMT.
This work is graphite on paper and is signed and dated by the artist.
