William Kentridge "Try not to fail, Then work with the failure".

After completing my drawing project I was interested in researching other charcoal artists and discovered the work of the artist William Kentridge.
Inspired by his home country of South Africa he looks at the social aspects of life in the country and how it affects the people who live there.

William Kentridge, Drawings for "Other Faces" animation. 

His drawings are the foundations for his animation works and he photographs each image at different stages of drawing then imports them as stills into the films. As he does this he alters each drawing, rubbing bits out, smudging areas, highlighting, darkening and adding new areas. This technique makes the drawings shadowy as they are filmed and the charcoal leaves a ghostly image even when rubbed out which adds a layer of history to the films. 

This is kentridge's style and it appealed to me because it relates to the work I produced for my drawing project where I made charcoal drawings of my local area but with a look of darkness, suspicion and chaos.

His images are dramatic and tell stories even before they become part of his films and they all have a certain dark mood to them. 

In his film "Felix in Exile" we see the artists own style in full force. Things he's witnessed first hand or looked at in newspaper reports inspire the dead people bleeding from different areas of the body, harsh landscapes and expressionless faces which fill the screen. His films are full of shock as well. In "Pain and Sympathy"we witness several acts of violence with people being beaten up, axed, stabbed and kicked in the head but its the way he then shows the battered skull as an x-ray with red crosses marking the points where the booted foot was kicking him that makes the film brilliant. As the car travels along the road we see ghostly figures trying to escape from something until finally the car hits someone and their terrifying head smashes through the windscreen and wakes the dying man in his hospital bed. An excellent piece of inspirational and technically brilliant art.
The accompanying soft, confused music and sounds gives a feeling of reliving a dream, or nightmare. The films are all about emotions, thoughts, death, violence and the acts of humans affected by apartheid.

In his drawings and prints Kentridge uses white highlights which serve the purpose of darkening the black within the scene and these dark areas then draw our eyes into the important areas of the drawing. I use the same technique in my images and use white paint to give the drawings added depth and perspective. 

Willaim Kentridge, Drawing for the opera the magic flute, 2005. 

The works appear to be statements of social happenings in the history of South Africa and how the artist sees it himself.  

His use of strong, direct lines and constant re-drawing of each picture creates unique films which relate the idea of stories in a gritty, ghostly way. 

His personal history tied in with the history of his home have given him the tools he needed to create these great pieces of art. 

Kentridge says of his drawing "It isn't a decision, Its a need" and I think what he's trying to say is he needs to draw. He needs to make artworks in the way an alcoholic needs to drink alcohol. Reading his interviews he definitely comes across as someone addicted to making marks on paper.