Rootlines — Pen Drawings (Sketchbook Studies)
These drawings are part of the ongoing Rootlines project and were created using a simple ballpoint pen (BIC) directly in sketchbooks, without preparatory sketches or predefined compositions.
Working with an everyday, non-precious tool allows the process to remain immediate and unfiltered. The pen becomes a tracing instrument rather than a drawing device — following rhythms, pressures, and pauses of the hand. Lines accumulate slowly, building dense, organic structures that oscillate between roots, branches, nerve systems, and internal landscapes.
The drawings move from heavy, almost sculptural masses to fragile, hair-like extensions, echoing natural growth patterns and underground networks. Cross-hatching, repetition, and directional lines replace traditional shading, creating depth through time and persistence rather than illusion.
These works are not studies for prints. They exist as autonomous pieces — records of observation, memory, and embodied attention. The sketchbook format preserves their intimacy and processual nature: folds, page edges, pressure marks, and irregularities are integral to the work.
Within Rootlines, these pen drawings function as a visual research field — a space where form is discovered rather than designed, and where drawing becomes a way of thinking through connection, continuity, and belonging.
