Linear, Dryden Goodwin

Londoners traveling from Southwark and London Bridge tube stations may well be familiar with the images above. As part of TfL’s Art on the Underground initiative artist Dryden Goodwin has been commissioned to draw sixty portraits of individuals working in various roles on the Jubilee line.

Rendered in multiple layers of delicate pencil strokes and scribbles, the blown-up portraits are presented outside the stations on big billboards and on poster sites across the underground network. For a real sense of the project however, you are encouraged to go online where the intimate portraits come alive. Each image is presented as a short animated film that documents the accelerated progression of the drawings, accompanied by fragments of conversation between the artist and sitter that reveal a multitude of personal exchanges and stories. Together the animations and dialogues form an intimate and diverse social portrait of this community of workers.

Linear will be online until February 2011.