As Gormley found himself increasingly on the move, he resorted to small sheets of Somerset Weave torn into sixteenths for greater portability. The black pigment and casein was now dispersed in water to create a washed effect, similar to watercolour. Some of the finely outlined images from 1994 unusually employ pen as well as brush. Most of the drawings were made in the Lake District, at a house on Coniston Water which the Gormley's have visited regularly since 1984. Like the Ardpatrick images, some are redolent of specific places; here the garden, trees, barn and fields surrounding the house. This time the landscape is sensed at night with the nocturnal growth patterns of plants graphically imagined. Other sequences evoke the sensation of floating, diving or swimming through the depths of Coniston Water. In this important series, light now plays a major role, acting as 'mirror' in relation to 'the weight of the ground or body'. The water-dispersed medium allows for greater fluidity and an accompanying sense of illusionism. The style freely veers from the flat or 'diagrammatic' to the 'participatory/romantic', as the graphic, principally black and white, nature of drawing is investigated and its 'almost limitless possibilities' celebrated. Just as depth is explored, so also is the notion of 'going places in the drawing which are not possible in life or sculpture - outer space or deep water'. This delving into depth also allows for imaginative penetration into macroscopic or microscopic.

Text by Anna Moszynska, from ANTONY GORMLEY DRAWING, Published by The British Museum Press, 2002