Otis Blease
Otis Blease (b.1993) is currently based in London, having moved to study at The Royal Drawing School in 2019. Before The Drawing Year he studied Drawing and Printmaking at Bristol UWE, where he was awarded The Dumfries House residency upon graduation. Having grown up in Cornwall, the move to London had a considerable impact on his work. The city’s constant state of motion added an energy and spontaneity to his practice. Working with mixed media materials, often onto paper he explores feelings of excitement and anxiety in his work, interested in the way life can seem both thrilling and mundane simultaneously.
His recent work is an exploration of combining drawing, painting and printing, and works from life, making drawings and notes in his sketchbook, often of the people he sees on public transport. These sketches are developed into charcoal drawings and then onto larger paintings. His work relies on ‘accidents’, disused sections of previous works come back into play, and a mixture of observational and imaginary image making.
