On show art Arts Council England. More details here.

Cut Column is based on an earlier holographic monoprint, “Centre Column” produced in 1989 and now held in the Lauk Collection, Germany.

A celebration, exactly 20 years on from the production of the original, the 2009 piece takes the same column-like gestural 'scribble' and uses a micro-fine focused beam of laser light to 'excise' the drawing from traditional watercolour paper.

The resulting 'image' is made up of three 'holes' in the paper, spaces where the drawings should have been. The absence of drawing.

Each of the works, separated by 20 years, displays the absence of the original hand-made marks through the interaction of light on a surface. The holographic version capturing photonic diffraction onto silver halide photographic emulsion, the paper version using photons as a knife, to cut away paper fibre and reveal the space behind.

The results, in both cases, are small, 'insignificant', marks made significant by their absence.

This is the second, limited edition, work on paper made by Andrew Pepper.

Also part of The Absence of Drawing series, it joins Nine Drawn Spaces, the first laser cut 'drawaing' made in 2008.

Full edition details.

Special thanks to Sue Turton, at Nottingham Trent University, who has helped me pursuade the laser cutter there to do what I wanted it to do and not what it thought I wanted!