Laith McGregor

A bit of fun. Attention teachers! Why not try something unexpected to kick off your lesson about Laith McGregor? Welcome your students to class by playing the song ‘Message in a bottle’ by the Police. After 42 years – it is still a hit and the lyrics would be great to analyse and piece together the narrative of the song.

Look closely at the work HOPE (2022). List all the things you can recognise. Some of the abstract shapes have been borrowed from nautical distress flags. Take a look at a chart of the International Maritime Signal Flags. Can you identify any of these flag designs in HOPE?

• McGregor would often visit and draw in galleries, looking for different ways of mark making. Explore AGSA’s collection online or in person and find a variety of works where diverse mark making techniques have been used.
• McGregor likes to use large sheets of paper to draw on and sometimes approaches drawing as a daily documentation of his thoughts and ideas. In 2012 McGregor created a 4-metre drawing titled Someone which took a year to complete. This work includes text, free hand drawing, lists and dreams – McGregor describes it as a giant diary of the year. Create your own visual wall diary for the year. Find a large surface where you can attach large sheets of paper to create a giant canvas. It could be a bedroom wall or a wall in your classroom – this activity could be a collaborative one that you undertake as a class.

At almost five metres long, HOPE is made from hundreds of small pencil lines, which create a dreamlike landscape whereby a hidden message is revealed to those who take the time to look. McGregor emphasises: The drawing reflects my own feelings of helplessness, isolation, and expectancy. I see this work as a self-portrait as such, a moment in time that I will never forget, as I'm sure most won't. Are any of us free to walk away from this current state of being or will we all be consumed by this state of emergency? We can only hope.

• Create your own intricate drawing of an imaginary landscape using pencil or pen which includes a hidden message – only to be uncovered by those who choose to look closely and for longer.
• Drawing is about looking. Sometimes, even when we draw the same things again and again, each drawing can look different. Draw an object in front of you for 1 minute onto a post-it note. Now draw the same object again on a new post-it note. Repeat this process again until you have 10-15 different drawings. You might like to vary the time you allocate to each drawing or the way you apply your mark – for example it could be one continuous line or a series of small short lines. Compare your drawings, which drawing do you prefer? Arrange your post-it note drawings in a interesting composition. Will you arrange them darkest to lightest or most accurate to least or the one you like the most to the one you like the least? What other ways could you display your post-it note works of art?
• When McGregor was at art school, he vowed never to buy any art materials and used whatever he could find. He often would use biros for his drawings. Create a series of small drawings using only biro. Experiment with varying the pressure and pace at which apply the biro to the page.
• McGregor says that drawing always come back to the line. Where do we see lines? How many different ways can you describe line? For example, long, short, bold or thin Find 5 works of art where lines have been drawn, painted or carved in different ways.

Traditionally a message in a bottle is a vessel, thrown out to sea that contains a message. They hold the potential for universal communication, and are representative of hope. McGregor’s idea to create an installation generated from hundreds of messages in bottles, stems from the recognition that at some point over the last few years we have all felt adrift.

• Send your own SOS to the world. Imagine you are writing a message to someone on the other side of the world, 100 years from now. What do you think they need to know about the current day?
• As a school community you may like to write a small message to someone you don’t know. It could be a compliment, a positive affirmation or some advice. Place your message in a bottle you have brought from home. Collect all the bottles and redistribute the bottles back to another person.
• Find an interesting story about a message in a bottle being found. Create a work of art inspired by that story.
• Investigate other artists who use text, messaging or exchange as a means of making a work of art. Tips: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Lee Mingwei, and Kind words by Ziba Scott

McGregor has created an embroidery-like quality in his drawing by simply using a combination of lines. Find examples of embroidery or long stitch to compare to McGregor’s work. How are they similar or different?

Pareidolia is being able to see faces or patterns in objects, where there are none. Did you notice how in HOPE (2022), the circle doubles like a sun? McGregor has embedded a portrait in the mast of the rigging of the ship in Nigh Night. Can you locate it? How has he disguised this portrait – does it double as something else?

Nigh Night is thematically linked to colonial nautical narratives. Locate another nautical works of art in the collection to pair with McGregor’s work. Why did you make this selection?

Artists sometimes rely on their subconscious to create works of art - the Surrealists were well known for this. Document your dreams for one week. Look at what you have written, is there anything that resonates with you? If not, cut out sentences or words from what you have documented and place them in a hat. Select a word or sentence at random and create a tonal line drawing based on this.