Lichtenberg Drawings

The Lichtenberg Drawings exist in a state of a transition: a blurring of the lines produces pieces that whilst neither drawings, paintings nor sculptures, manage somehow to be simultaneously all three.

They are nominally and literally "Lichtenberg figures", particular forms generated by the discharge of electricity fracturing into an insulating base - in nature, the effect can be seen at the site of a lightning strike. Indeed the series began after White saw an image of a man who had been struck by lightning, his back displaying capillaries ruptured into a Lichtenberg figure.

Channelling this brutal process onto wood produces a remarkable effect: delicate feathers of branching leaves fan out from scarred, fragile ravines. Blends of charcoal and gold layer into one another exquisitely, like a Chinese shan shui landscape lost on its way back from the Song dynasty. There's the poise of fine drawing, with a sculptural texture, all of which is shrouded in a destructive overtone. 

Violence unravels itself further as the process becomes more understood: White uses a neon sign transformer to initiate the discharge of 10,000 volts into its base, setting the parameters of the burning, but then giving up control. The piece is left to complete its own creation by controlled destruction - a smooth two dimensional canvas becomes a scarred and textured hung installation - a thing of brutal beauty.

Paul Metcalfe