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Mary Yacoob
Selected Images
Fig. 1, 'Draft 15', 102 x 66cm, 2016
The ‘Draft’ series responds to the obscure operational diagrams behind our daily lives, seeking them out and re-purposing them for new imaginative encounters. Each drawing originates from a sketch of a diagram sourced from textbooks about the hardware of sound technology. The rhythm, repetition and durational nature of mark-making refers to the production of sound. White ink on dark blue paper recalls the use of handmade ‘blueprints’, creating a bridge in time to a pre-digital age.
Fig. 2, 'Intergraphia', 47cm x 34.6, cyanotype print, 2022
The circular and gridded configuration is inspired by Luke Howard’s book Barometrographia, in which the meteorologist, who classified and named clouds, recorded changes in barometric pressure, weather, and phases of the moon from his home in Tottenham. Seeking to connect the earthly to the cosmic, and the local to the global, the artist filled the space of her diagram with an imaginary map of interstellar clouds.
Fig. 3, 'Schema 04', cyanotype print, 34 x 47 cm, 2019
Images inspired by engineering diagrams and geometry, shown at Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2019 and at a solo exhibition at Five Years Gallery. ‘Schema’ are light drawings that aim to push the boundaries of the industrially obsolete technical process of cyanotype print, invented in 1842 by the astronomer Sir John Herschel to reproduce diagrams. The works evoke the geometry of machine tools, astrolabes, circular and rotating tacho-discs, and gearboxes depicted in cross-section. The drawings explore how in creatively responding to a scientific image, something of the source’s presence and function may be retained in the intricacy, rhythm, and structure of the artworks.
Fig. 4, Installation photo of 'Schema' prints in solo exhibition at Five Years Gallery, 2020, Funded by Arts Council England
Images inspired by engineering diagrams and geometry. For description see Fig. 3.
Fig. 5, 'Design of the Panopticon: Chaos', aquatint etching, 76 x 56 cm, 2011
This etching was made in response to the ideas of Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher who designed plans for a panopticon prison, in which a hidden and centrally placed guard can observe prisoners who are arranged in a circle around him. In his book ‘Discipline and Punish’, the philosopher Michel Foucault describes panoptic social systems as diagrams of social control, in which the feeling of being watched causes people to internalise disciplinary power. Made during my AA2A printmaking residency at Camberwell College of Art.
Fig. 6, 'Marcello Mind Maze', 132 x 172 cm, 2019, installation at the Hospital Club, London
This vinyl work is inspired by a splicing of two diagrams - a cross section of a human brain and an architectural plan of an ancient Roman amphitheatre. By combining these two sources of information and visual languages, the work explores the similarities between the pathways, systems, circuitous routes within bodily and architectural systems, as well as the similar diagrammatic visual abstractions that are used to represent these functions. The reflexive gold vinyl absorbed the reflections of passers by, drawing them into the psychological space of the drawing.
Fig. 7, 'Constructor', transparent blue vinyl on glass doors, each pane 89 x 236 cm, 2019,
This site-specific vinyl artwork was commissioned for Swiss Cottage Library by curatorial group Passengers and Camden Council. The design is inspired by the influence of technology and the ‘machine aesthetic’ in Modernist architecture. This artwork was inspired by the architectural plans of the nearby Alexandra Road estate, designed by Neave Brown, whose works were an influential instance of the Modernist approach in the design and planning of social housing projects in the 1960s.
Fig. 8, Silver mirror vinyl installation at Surgery Gallery, 2021.
This installation took the form of silver vinyl decals inspired by diagrams of medical instruments from the Wellcome Collection. Silhouetted configurations were rendered in metalic vinyl, creating mysterious and kinetic abstractions, bringing to light the extraordinary variety of forms behind our medical history. The theme of the artwork was inspired by the name of the gallery, Surgery, which based on the building’s former use as a GP surgery.
Fig. 9, 'Diagram of Three Characters (Instinctive, Rational and Intuitive) after John Latham', 14.8 x 21cm, ink on paper, 2020
In March 2020, artists and researchers David Burrows, John Cussans and Dean Kenning and myself started the Diagram Research Group (DRG). We discuss aesthetic, philosophical, and semiotic aspects of diagrams. This drawing was made for our Delta Research Placement at Flat Time House, the studio home of the artist John Latham. My drawing diagrams Latham’s ideas about how the characters in the novel ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Dostoevsky engage with reality. Mitya is instinctive and spontaneous, Ivan is rational, and Alyosha is reflective and intuitive. My diagram shows the different levels of intensity by which we may experience all three modes of engagement.
Fig 10, 'Nexus 03', Drawing in lightbox, 72cm x 54cm, 2022
These colour-saturated drawings in lightboxes and explore relations between geometry, spatial relations, and our perceptual experience.
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