John Stell

My drawing commissioned for exhibition in Holden Gallery, Manchester School of Art. June 7 to 20, 2025.
6 metres long. Marks are collected by walking and rendered into a map of the route as experienced

My drawings as exhibited in Salford last month. Handmade marks recorded digitally. Each is 3m by 1m

Thank you. I am looking into high quality Giclee prints and maybe cheaper options

At night with streetlights in distance. 600 half second exposure images with (quite old) digital camera while walking. Images superimposed with some Python scripting and the Gimp.

Another walking drawing. 600 half-second gestures

A picture of a cat, very fluffy flavour, he's a Rag Doll - Maine Coon cross and is getting elderly at 14 or so. Looks slightly pinkish brown and white in this picture

This is Mr Wally the Cat

A large room. Dim. On the floor crumpled masses of paper. On the walls, large drawings on flat sheets (maybe as big as over 2 metres on long side). In the corner paper with heavily worked graphite marks cascades into the room.

Today I went to Drawing Room London and saw the installation by Emma McNally. Fascinating

Time to re-up this:

Five yellow Springer maths books from 50 to 30 years ago. Only the bottom parts are visible. The visible parts of the spines say: oduction ategories lity Topology Proceedings 1972/73

Yellow books

I wonder how this relates to grammatical ideas relating to diagrams and pictures which didn't arise in neuroscience. Shape grammars and other things, and where topological relationships between picture elements come in?

Two drawings on studio wall. Next to each other. Gestural marks on each, black on white. Ceiling with beams visible at top, so you can tell these are quite large, hanging off foldback clips on nails. Both about 240cm tall

Studio scene. Walking drawing in two parts about 2.4m tall

Misty view. Trees on right becoming invisible as they march into the middle distance. Field in foreground. All else is shrouded in mist

It's misty here today.

. . . mathematicians can understand a picture showing 10 potatoes as having 4 potatoes, taking 4 to mean at least 4. They also say things like "exactly 4 distinct potatoes" to be really clear you must count them all and you cannot count any twice. Was the AI counting like that? (No, not really)

So glad to see you here

Yes, this is a harmful stereotype and dyscalculia is real. Yet maths might not be as simple as a single thing that you can either do or not. I wonder if some autistic people are disadvantaged by how it is often inflicted on them in school in unnecessarily rigid ways

Photo of cloudy sky with trees and fields in foreground. Misty and raining. Patch of blue sky

Today's prospect, Calderdale

Spatial relations (in, on, under, etc) Interesting

Maybe being wildly wrong oneself sometimes is related to being creative and so is not a bad thing, but minor details stand out in a way that neurotypical people find had to believe

A discussion on the other site about how 8% of 25 is the same as 25% of 8 is quite interesting. One camp is "multiplication is commutative so that's obvious" the other is "wow, never knew that". Finding one easier than the other to compute is intriguing

It's always seemed bizarre that institutions market themselves as if their current incarnations can claim credit for what happened 50 or 100 years ago

I fit the criteria and would be happy to be included. Although my research has absolutely nothing to do with autism it is probably influenced by my experience of being autistic

As you can tell, the following is ai-generated. The image features an abstract composition of swirling, tangled white lines against a dark background. The lines vary in thickness and direction, creating a chaotic yet dynamic visual effect. The overall appearance resembles a web of light or energy, with no distinct shapes or forms, emphasizing movement and fluidity. The contrast between the bright lines and the dark backdrop enhances the sense of depth and complexity in the image.

I am making drawings

Times 10 and add half of that

Artwork. Black gestural marks on white background

More work

Two images, abstract drawings, black gestures on white paper. Vertical orientation about 3 times taller than wide

Recent drawing process experiments

Picture of three books. The three volumes of Principia Mathematics by Whitehead and Russell

Volume 1 is the reprint of the 2nd edition, 2 and 3 are the first printing of the 2nd edition. The letterpress in vol 2 especially has a physical texture you can feel. The other thing that's remarkable is the shape which is different from the later reprints.

Artwork. Black ink with white lines that were masked areas. Abstract shapes about 10 of them are made by the lines.

Unearthed some drawings from about 2007.

Drawing as found traces

Drawing as finding traces

Sign reads: Reverse (really obvious vertical gap about 1 and a half lines high) Parking Only Bay

The artist has subtly referenced the railway station location of this work at Mytholmroyd in which the phrase "mind the gap" is present through the disrupted representation of a mundane parking instruction