Drawings

In Tobiasse’s work, drawing is first and foremost writing. “I don’t say that I draw, but rather that I write a drawing. When I start to draw, I begin without knowing what I am going to do, I let myself go. The pencil or the pen leads the dance, not me. It’s only that behind the surface a precious stone is hiding, that must be cut and polished. The drawing must stay free, that is the unique condition for its existence.”

For Tobiasse, drawing was a major means of expression, a necessary act, it was as if he was breathing in the centre of internal music. He compared it to a symphony around which an orchestra of colours was organized.

These six large nudes in pastel enhanced with paint and lead pencil are from a series of 34 works in the artist’s personal collection.

They reveal a different facet of his work and we discover the strength and flight of the refined line. These nudes, some sensual, others majestic, grasped in the magic of the instant, recall to us one of his preferred themes, the surrounded paramour.