Breeze

In Bob Dylan’s extraordinary collection of paintings, Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series, we are given insight into the expressive, unvarnished way this artist approaches the world and reminded he is that rare person who can move effortlessly between music, word, ink, paint, as if he’s just futzing around with a few different instruments in the studio. Yet again and again, he reflects life back to us with a truth and simplicity that defy words. His brushstrokes are like his voice: straightforward, rough, occasionally fragile, but always intent on illustrating the treads of human experience. Seemingly unworried about how something looks, he’s not after artistic perfection but something larger—a moment, a feeling. The effect is enthralling. Dylan drew the moody black-and-white sketches while on tour between the years 1989 and 1992, and in 2007 turned some of these drawings into more than 200 paintings (170 reproduced here) by adding vibrant watercolors and gouaches, as well as titles like Feet and Cupid Doll . The naturalistic scenes record the world around him, observed between performances, and illustrate how his eye relentlessly pursues usually ignored people, buildings and common objects. He wrenches objects from the background an outdated TV, Venetian blinds, empty doorways and alleys and puts them center stage, unearthing a beauty in the bland.

£40