I recently visited the 'Radical Geometry' exhibition at the Royal Academy, little realising that Glenn Sujo, who teaches a wonderful life class at the Princes Drawing School, grew up in that abstract tradition, with paintings of Alejandro Otero and Carlos Cruz-Diez hanging in his parents' home in Venezuela.
The title of Glenn's drawing class is 'The Emergent Subject'. This seems very significant to me. I take it as an announcement of the importance of a Subject in Art, of the working out of ideas and feelings, as opposed to an ironic stance, the flip of a switch, or a smart turn of phrase.
Glenn's class is unique in that we draw from the moving figure. His approach to teaching is scholarly, rigourous and thoughtful. It has always suprised me that Glenn's own practice, which for the past 20 years has been exclusively devoted to drawing, seems at first the antithisis of the class he teaches. While we work all day at a frantic pace, he may spend many years on a single layered drawing.
It is as though he takes the concentrated effort of the instantaneous response and distills it down through focused attention.
Glenn has recently completed a year as the G.F.Watts Associate Artist, affording him time for the daily practice of drawing from a skeleton, and through this to examine the relationship between life and death.
To get a glimpse of Glenn's originality and of the ideas that inform his work, I recommend you follow this link http://youtu.be/Ak9czHf7myl
Better still, visit his exhibition Anatomies: Studies from the Human Skeleton & Other Works
20th September - 2nd November 2014
Saturdays and Sundays from 2:30 to 5:30pm
The Drawing Schools, Eton College, Windsor SL4 6DU
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