I have been intending to write a bit about the aesthetic of Menga (漫畫) recently because the important role it plays in the drawing technique that I have been practicing with. Especially in the series Infinite Ruin.
Drawing with ball pen is rudimentary and direct. Unlike oil paint, whose painting process involves canvas building, paint ground preparation, color mixing , drying time.. there is a certain bluntness to black ink drawing that one just poke the pen needle onto the fiber of paper and the result is almost 100% of the time just unapologetically black. It is an immediate action that creates in an instance a permeant effect.
In many ways it is a more naked way of visual expression. In comparison to digital drawing, there are much less distance built between you (the creator) and the artifact (your drawing). When working in computer, your creative process is programmed and presupposed: how the canvas space is defined with grid of pixel, color numberized and the action “paint” or “stroke” programmed. It is with no double that digital tools are extremely powerful, I often feel a lack of authorship to my digital works despite the numerous hours spent on making them.
That is perhaps the reason why I circle back to simple ink drawing, after having learnt to paint, build and render digitally. It’s aesthetic connection to Manga in the 90s is also endearing to me. The style and drawing technique applied in Mange is the first art style that I truly appreciate and felt inspired towards. It is not high art, if you may. It doesn’t fit into art history or the larger part of the art world. But it is something I truly find beautiful without an art museum tell me to feel so. Thus there must be some truth to this aesthetic that is worth exploring.