Drawing on philosophy – an investigation of theory in praxis

The article addresses the question: what is the relationship between perceptual experience and its interpretation through drawing? It is proposed that drawing, as knowledge and experience, is a particular way of coming to know the world that is explicated within personal practice. The research examines how drawing, through its expression of the concrete and the imaginary, provides interconnected ways of orientating knowledge that contribute to a multifaceted understanding of the ‘lived experience’. The practice of drawing is utilised as a research methodology in order to consider visualisations that are both descriptive and interpretive. The study draws on philosophy, in particular the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, to consider the complexities and interconnections of mind, object and body that are experienced through drawing. By being immersed in the visible, the concrete, through the body, the visible is not appropriated, but is instead revealed by the act of ‘looking’