I have been thinking about what happens when drawing takes longer than expected. Not simply the physical time it takes to make a drawing, but a different kind of duration: a condition that develops between looking and making, between one mark and the next, and sometimes between one day in the studio and the next. I have come to call this condition Delay.
Delay is not a pause. It is not indecision, and it is not simply slowness. It is a space in which perception and making continually reorganise one another. The ideas in this essay have emerged from my own painting and drawing practice. They were not developed as an application of an existing academic theory. I began with the experience of making drawings and gradually found that I needed different words to describe what was happening. Three concepts have become particularly useful to me: Delay, Residue, and Apeiron. They are not rules for making art, nor scientific explanations of perception. They are working concepts — language that has emerged from sustained attention to what happens in the studio.
The drawings I am thinking about begin from a digital photograph of a model. The photograph gives me a stable visual reference, but that stability does not transfer directly into the act of drawing. The photograph remains the same; my perception of it does not. Each mark changes the conditions under which the next mark is seen. The process can be described simply: photographic image → perception → mark → residue → renewed perception → further mark. This recursive movement is where Delay begins.
The photograph presents the figure as a fixed event. It can be returned to repeatedly. The same image is there tomorrow, next week, or months later. Drawing is different. I look at the photograph and make a mark. That mark immediately becomes something else to look at. It sits on the paper alongside the image I am holding in perception. The next mark is therefore not made in response to the photograph alone; it is made in response to the photograph through everything that has already happened on the paper. The first mark is already a departure from the source. The second mark encounters the first. The third encounters the first two. Gradually, the drawing becomes a perceptual situation of its own.
Delay is not simply the amount of time between seeing something and drawing it. It is the changing condition produced by the relationship between perception and making. A coloured‑pencil line may begin as an attempt to describe the contour of the body, but once it is on the paper, it may begin to compete with that contour. If I leave it rather than erase it, it becomes a new perceptual fact. I now have to see the figure through the line. The line has changed the situation. This is why Delay is different from ordinary revision. Revision suggests that something has been made and is subsequently corrected. In Delay, the earlier mark changes the perceptual conditions of what comes next. I am no longer looking at exactly the same figure I was looking at before. The drawing has entered the relationship.
This leads naturally to Residue. Residue is not simply what remains after an action has taken place. In drawing, what remains can continue to act. A pink or blue passage, a broken contour, an area of exposed paper, a darker linear intervention, a smudge, a layer of pastel or a mark extending beyond the figure can all alter the visual conditions in which the next decision is made. The drawing accumulates its own history while it is being produced. Earlier marks do not necessarily become discarded stages on the way towards a finished image. They remain present as active conditions within the work.
The figure may remain recognisable, but recognition is continually interrupted and reorganised by the material events surrounding it. Colour moves beyond descriptive function. Lines fracture and reappear. Marks extend beyond the figure and begin to participate in the surrounding space. The motif remains present, but it is repeatedly re‑formed through the accumulation of traces. At a certain point I may find myself responding less to the photograph directly and more to the photograph through the drawing that has developed between us. The drawing has begun to remember. But this memory is not passive. It changes what can happen next. A previous mark can make another mark necessary. A colour can alter the way another colour is perceived. A line can make the surrounding space suddenly important. Something that first appeared to be an error can become essential once the rest of the drawing has developed around it. The residue becomes part of the conditions for continuation.
This brings me to Apeiron. I use Apeiron as a concept arising from my own painting and drawing practice. I do not use it as a neurological term or as a scientific explanation of how the brain works. For me, Apeiron describes an open perceptual field in which observation, memory, imagination, previous sensory experience, learned visual knowledge and material residue can become active within making. I do not begin drawing from an empty state. I bring previous experiences of looking with me: memories of colour, bodies, surfaces, spaces, paintings, drawings and other ways of seeing. I bring accumulated knowledge from years of practice. But these things do not remain outside the drawing as a set of instructions waiting to be applied. They enter the active field of making. Then the drawing begins to add something of its own.
A mark I make becomes part of what I see a few moments later. A colour can activate another colour. A contour can become unstable. An area of exposed paper can begin to function as a positive visual element rather than an absence. Something I might previously have erased can become necessary to the work. Apeiron is the openness in which these things can interact. I sometimes think of this as dynamic oscillation. The drawing moves between the photographic source, the perceived figure, accumulated residue, memory, imagination and the developing material surface. None of these remains completely separate. Each can modify the others. If Delay describes the displacement between seeing and making, and Residue describes the persistence of previous material action within subsequent perception, then dynamic oscillation describes the movement between them. Apeiron is the open field in which that movement takes place.
Apeiron is also where I locate what I think of as aesthetic realisation. Something can be sensed before it can be explained. A decision can happen before I have a language for why it happened. The hand moves. The line appears. The colour is placed. Only afterwards might I understand something about why the mark felt necessary. This does not mean that the hand possesses some mysterious knowledge separate from the artist. It means that much of what happens through long practice does not arrive first as a fully formed verbal proposition. Years of looking and making become embodied within the practice. The drawing is therefore not simply a plan being executed. It is a situation being discovered.
This is why I am interested in the relationship between perception and making rather than simply between intention and execution. The work can surprise me. It can resist me. It can show me something that I did not consciously intend to put there. And once it has shown me something, that discovery becomes part of what I can see. The process is cumulative.
I have started calling this working from the inside. The phrase does not mean turning away from the external world. The photograph is still there. The figure is still there. Observation is still there. But once drawing begins, the external image enters another system. The photograph gives me the beginning, but it does not contain the ending. The drawing gradually reorganises the way I see the photograph, and my changing perception of the photograph reorganises the drawing.
This is why I have become less interested in predetermined visual rules. Perspective, proportion, anatomy, shading, modelling, tonal relationships and other conventions of drawing contain enormous amounts of accumulated artistic knowledge. They are valuable. They are part of the history through which I have learned to see. But something that begins as a discovery can become a convention. A convention can become a rule. And a rule can eventually become something that prevents seeing. I am not interested in rejecting art history. I am interested in what happens when its knowledge remains present without becoming prescriptive. The drawing can remember what has come before without having to repeat it.
This is where I recognise a historical correspondence with Paul Cézanne. The connection is not primarily stylistic. I am not trying to make my drawings look like Cézanne’s paintings. What interests me is the possibility that the method of making can emerge from the experience of looking itself. Cézanne is often associated with the attempt to realise sensation through painting rather than simply copy the appearance of an object. His well‑known statement that painting from nature is not copying the object but realising one’s sensations has remained important in discussions of his practice. That distinction interests me because it shifts attention from the object as something already completely known towards the act through which perception becomes material.
I recognise something similar in my own work. The motif does not arrive on the paper as a completed truth waiting to be copied. It enters a process of perceptual negotiation. Cézanne’s paintings also demonstrate the importance of accumulation. Colour, form, surface and spatial relationships gradually establish one another through repeated acts of looking and making. His slowness therefore interests me not simply as a biographical characteristic but as a condition of practice. The painting needs to accumulate. Relationships need time to become apparent. The work cannot necessarily be rushed towards resolution.
My drawings are slow in a similar sense, although the conditions are different. Cézanne repeatedly encountered the changing external world directly. I often begin from a photographic image that has already been technologically stabilised. The photograph does not move. But the drawing moves. And because the drawing moves, my perception of the photograph moves with it. The instability has moved into the process of making.
This is where Delay becomes more interesting to me. I have realised that Delay does not necessarily stop when I stop drawing. I can put the pencil down. I can leave the studio. I can go and have dinner. I can go for a walk. I can sleep. I can return the following day. Chronological time has continued to pass, but the painting is still in Delay. The marks are still there. The residue is still there. The relationships established through previous making remain available for renewed perception. When I return to the drawing, I may not see it in the same way. A colour that seemed insignificant can suddenly become important. A line that seemed wrong can become necessary. Something that appeared resolved can become unstable again. The material has not necessarily changed. My relationship to it has.
This is where the title Timeless Delay comes from. I do not mean that the artwork literally exists outside time. Time obviously passes. What I mean is that the phenomenological duration of the work cannot be reduced to clock time. The artwork carries its own duration. It carries the history of what has been made while remaining open to what might still be seen. The work is materially present, yet perceptually unfinished. The artwork itself carries Delay.
Thinking about this has also led me toward the field of micro‑phenomenology, particularly the work associated with Claire Petitmengin and others who have developed methods for investigating subtle, pre‑reflective dimensions of lived experience. What interests me here is the attention given to experiences that normally pass beneath ordinary reflection: small shifts of sensation, attention, gesture, perception and awareness that can be difficult to describe after the fact. There is an obvious resonance with drawing. Why did that line move that way? Why did that colour suddenly feel necessary? Why did I leave that mark? Why did the drawing suddenly seem to change?
Sometimes I can remember. Sometimes I cannot. But my experience of drawing has also made me wonder whether the most important structure of Delay can actually be located in a single recoverable moment. Perhaps it cannot. The experience seems to exist across accumulation. The mark I make today can affect what I see tomorrow. Something learned through drawing years ago can influence a decision without my consciously recalling where that knowledge came from. A mark made in one session can alter the perception of a drawing in another. The experience is distributed across the practice.
This suggests a complementary possibility: a kind of practice‑embedded phenomenology, in which the material work itself participates in carrying experience forward. The question is not only: What happened in that moment? It is also: What remains active from previous moments, and how does that residue alter what can subsequently be perceived? This is where Delay becomes different from a simple account of duration. It is not merely that the drawing takes a long time. It is that the past remains active within the present.
I suspect there could be rich possibilities if this dimension of practice were explored through dialogue. Not necessarily through an interview designed to produce a neat chronological account, but through an extended conversation around actual works. The artist could return to the drawings. The researcher could return with them. The conversation could develop over several sessions. Questions could be asked about particular marks, colours, interruptions, decisions and returns, but without assuming that every important experience occurred at one identifiable moment. Some things might become clearer only after the work had accumulated. Some things might remain difficult to articulate. Some things might only become apparent through looking again. The work itself could become part of the conversation. The artwork would not simply illustrate a theory; it would participate in the investigation.
There is no complete plan. Once the drawing begins, the plan begins to change. That is not a failure. It is part of the practice. Apeiron enters precisely because I cannot know everything the drawing will require before I begin. I might ask: What kind of mark does this sensation require? What happens when colour is introduced? What happens when a contour is broken? What happens if I leave a mark that I would previously have erased? What happens when the drawing stops behaving like the photograph? These questions have become more interesting to me than simply asking whether a mark is correct. A mark can clarify. A mark can obscure. A mark can describe and disrupt at the same time. It can close one possibility while opening another.
This is where Delay, Residue, dynamic oscillation and Apeiron come together. They are not rules. They are not a new artistic orthodoxy. They are words I have developed because I needed words for something I repeatedly encounter. The more I work with this idea, the less interested I become in the drawing as a finished object. The drawing is materially finished at some point, but perceptually it may not be finished. I can return to it. It can change for me. The marks have not changed physically, but their relationships can change through perception.
This may be one of the most important things I have learned from working slowly. The drawing does not simply contain what I have seen. It changes what I am able to see. The photograph begins the process, but the drawing takes over part of it. The mark becomes residue. Residue becomes perception. Perception becomes another mark. That mark becomes another condition for looking. The process continues. It accumulates. It remains open. That openness is where I locate Apeiron.
I am deliberately writing this as a practice‑led essay rather than as an academic paper. I am not trying to establish Delay, Residue or Apeiron as finished theoretical categories. I am not asking the reader to accept them as scientific explanations. They are concepts that have emerged from my own practice because I needed language for something I was repeatedly encountering. I am putting them into the world because I think ideas sometimes need to exist before they are fully formalised. An artist may recognise something in them. A philosopher may disagree with them. A phenomenologist may find a question worth pursuing. A researcher may take the ideas into another discipline and discover something I had not considered. Someone else may find completely different language for the same experience.
That is all part of what interests me. I do not want to close the idea down by deciding in advance exactly what it must mean. The purpose of the essay is to make the experience available. The artwork has already accumulated its traces. It has created its residue. It has remained in Delay. Now the idea can do something similar. It can leave the studio. It can enter another person’s perception. Someone else may see something in it that I cannot yet see.
Perhaps that is what a practice can do when it is allowed to become a proposition. A mark is made. It becomes residue. Someone encounters it. They see differently. They make something else. The delay continues.
タイムレス・ディレイ：セザンヌ以後の実践的描画現象学
私は、描くことが思っていたより長くかかるときに何が起きているのかを考えてきた。
単に一枚の絵を仕上げるための物理的な時間のことではなく、別の種類の持続——見ることと描くことのあいだ、ひとつの線と次の線のあいだ、そしてスタジオでの一日と次の一日のあいだに生じる状態のことである。
私はこの状態を Delay（ディレイ） と呼ぶようになった。
Delay は「間」ではない。
優柔不断でもなく、単なる「ゆっくり」でもない。
それは、知覚と制作が互いを絶えず再編成し続ける空間である。
このエッセイの考えは、私自身の絵画・描画の実践から生まれた。
既存の理論を当てはめようとしたのではなく、描いている最中の経験から、別の言葉が必要だと感じるようになったのだ。
特に役に立った概念が三つある。Delay、Residue、Apeiron。
これらは芸術制作のルールでも、知覚の科学的説明でもない。
スタジオで起きていることに注意深く向き合う中で生まれた「働く概念」である。
私がここで考えている描画は、モデルのデジタル写真から始まる。
写真は安定した視覚的参照を与えてくれるが、その安定は描く行為には直接移行しない。
写真は変わらないが、私の知覚は変わる。
ひとつの線が、次の線が見える条件を変えてしまう。
プロセスはこう説明できる：
写真 → 知覚 → 線（マーク）→ 残滓（Residue）→ 新たな知覚 → 次の線
この反復運動の中で Delay が始まる。
写真は固定された出来事として人物を提示する。
明日も、来週も、数ヶ月後も同じ画像がそこにある。
しかし描くことは違う。
私は写真を見て線を引く。
その線はすぐに「見るべき別のもの」になる。
次の線は写真だけに反応して描かれるのではなく、すでに紙の上で起きているすべてを通して描かれる。
最初の線はすでに写真からの逸脱であり、二本目は一本目に出会い、三本目はその二つに出会う。
やがて、描画は独自の知覚状況を形成し始める。
Delay は「見る→描く」の時間差ではない。
それは、知覚と制作の関係によって生じる変化し続ける条件である。
身体の輪郭を描こうとした色鉛筆の線が、紙の上に置かれた瞬間に輪郭と競合し始めることがある。
消さずに残せば、それは新しい知覚的事実になる。
私はその線を通して人物を見なければならなくなる。
状況が変わるのだ。
ここから自然に Residue（残滓） の概念が生まれる。
Residue は単なる「残り」ではない。
描画では、残ったものが次の行為に影響し続ける。
ピンクやブルーの通過、途切れた輪郭、露出した紙面、濃い線、パステルの層、人物を越えて伸びる線——
それらすべてが次の判断の視覚条件を変える。
描画は制作されながら、自身の歴史を蓄積する。
初期の線は「完成への途中段階」として捨てられるのではなく、作品の中で能動的な条件として残り続ける。
人物は認識可能なままだが、その認識は周囲の素材的出来事によって絶えず中断され、再編成される。
色は記述を超え、線は断片化し、空間は人物の周囲に参加し始める。
モチーフは存在し続けるが、痕跡の蓄積によって何度も作り直される。
この蓄積の中で、私は写真そのものよりも「写真と描画のあいだ」に反応していることに気づく。
描画は記憶し始める。
だがその記憶は受動的ではない。
次に起こりうることを変えてしまう。
ここで Apeiron（アペイロン） が現れる。
Apeiron は私の実践から生まれた概念であり、脳科学の用語ではない。
観察、記憶、想像、過去の感覚経験、学習された視覚知識、そして素材の残滓が、制作の中で能動的に働く「開かれた知覚場」を指す。
私は空白の状態から描き始めるわけではない。
色、身体、空間、絵画、描画、そして見方の記憶を持ち込む。
しかしそれらは外部の指示書として存在するのではなく、制作の場に入り込み、描画自身がさらに何かを加えていく。
線は数秒後には「見るべきもの」になる。
色は別の色を活性化し、輪郭は不安定になり、紙の露出は欠落ではなく積極的な要素になる。
以前なら消していた痕跡が、作品にとって必要になることもある。
Apeiron はこうした相互作用が起こる開かれた場である。
私はこれを dynamic oscillation（動的な揺れ） と呼ぶことがある。
描画は写真、人物の知覚、残滓、記憶、想像、素材の表面を行き来する。
どれも完全に独立しておらず、互いを変え続ける。
Apeiron はその揺れが起こる場である。
Apeiron はまた、私が 美的実現（aesthetic realisation） と呼ぶものの場所でもある。
説明できる前に感じられることがある。
言語化される前に決定が起こることがある。
手が動き、線が現れ、色が置かれる。
その後になって初めて「なぜ必要だったのか」がわかることがある。
これは「手が特別な知識を持っている」という意味ではない。
長い実践の中で蓄積された経験が、言語より先に働くということだ。
描画は計画の実行ではなく、状況の発見である。
私はこれを 内側から描く（working from the inside） と呼ぶようになった。
外界を拒否するという意味ではない。
写真はそこにあり、人物はそこにあり、観察は続いている。
しかし描き始めた瞬間、外部の画像は別のシステムに入る。
写真は始まりを与えるが、終わりを含んでいない。
描画が写真の見え方を再編成し、写真の見え方が描画を再編成する。
だから私は、あらかじめ決められた視覚的ルールに興味を失いつつある。
遠近法、比例、解剖学、明暗、モデリング、トーン——
それらは膨大な知識を含んでおり、私の視覚を形成してきた歴史の一部である。
しかし発見はやがて慣習になり、慣習は規則になり、規則はやがて「見えなくする」ことがある。
私は美術史を拒否したいわけではない。
ただ、その知識が「規範」にならず、「可能性」として残ることに興味がある。
ここで私は セザンヌ に歴史的な共鳴を感じる。
それは様式的な類似ではない。
私の絵をセザンヌのように見せたいわけではない。
興味があるのは、「制作の方法が見る経験から生まれる」という可能性である。
セザンヌは「自然を写すのではなく、感覚を実現する」と語った。
その区別は、対象を既知のものとして扱うのではなく、知覚が物質化される行為に注意を向ける。
私の描画も同じように、モチーフは「写すべき真実」ではなく、知覚的交渉のプロセスに入る。
セザンヌの絵は蓄積の重要性を示している。
色、形、表面、空間関係が、見ることと描くことの反復の中で徐々に立ち上がる。
彼の「遅さ」は伝記的特徴ではなく、実践の条件である。
関係は時間を必要とし、作品は急いで解決されるものではない。
私の描画も同じように遅い。
ただし条件は異なる。
セザンヌは変化する外界を直接見続けたが、私は技術的に固定された写真から始めることが多い。
写真は動かない。
しかし描画は動く。
描画が動くから、写真の見え方も動く。
不安定さは制作のプロセスに移動した。
Delay は制作を止めても止まらない。
スタジオを離れ、食事をし、散歩をし、眠り、翌日戻っても、作品は Delay の中にある。
痕跡は残り、関係は残り、昨日の制作が今日の知覚に影響する。
昨日は重要でなかった色が今日重要になる。
昨日は間違いに見えた線が今日必要になる。
素材は変わらないが、私の関係が変わる。
これが Timeless Delay の意味である。
作品は時計の時間とは別の持続を持つ。
制作の歴史を保持しながら、まだ見える可能性を開いたまま存在する。
物質的には完成していても、知覚的には未完である。
この考えは、クレール・プティマンジャンらによる 微細現象学（micro‑phenomenology） にも通じる。
そこでは、通常の反省の下に沈んでしまう微細な感覚や注意の変化が扱われる。
描画にも同じことが起きる。
なぜその線はそう動いたのか。
なぜその色が突然必要に感じられたのか。
なぜその痕跡を残したのか。
なぜ絵が突然変わったように見えたのか。
思い出せることもあれば、思い出せないこともある。
しかし Delay の構造は、単一の瞬間に回収できるものではないのかもしれない。
経験は蓄積の中に存在する。
今日の線が明日の知覚を変え、数年前の経験が無意識に判断を支え、別の日の痕跡が別の日の知覚を変える。
経験は実践全体に分散している。
だから私は、作品そのものが経験を運ぶ「実践内在的な現象学」があり得ると考えるようになった。
問いは「その瞬間に何が起きたか」だけではなく、
「以前の瞬間から何が残り、何が次の知覚を変えているのか」でもある。
Delay は単なる「長い制作時間」ではない。
過去が現在の中で能動的に働き続けるということだ。
この次元は、対話によってさらに深められるかもしれない。
作品を前にして、時間をかけて話す。
一度のインタビューではなく、複数回の往復。
痕跡、色、途切れ、判断、戻り——
それらを作品とともに見直す。
作品自身が調査に参加する。
そして私は気づく。
完全な計画など存在しない。
描き始めた瞬間に計画は変わり始める。
それは失敗ではなく、実践そのものだ。
Apeiron は、描く前にすべてを知ることができないからこそ現れる。
どんな線がこの感覚に必要なのか。
色を置くと何が起きるのか。
輪郭を壊すと何が起きるのか。
消すはずだった痕跡を残すと何が起きるのか。
描画が写真のように振る舞わなくなると何が起きるのか。
これらの問いは「正しい線かどうか」よりもずっと面白い。
線は明確にし、曖昧にし、記述し、破壊し、閉じ、開く。
Delay、Residue、dynamic oscillation、Apeiron——
これらは規則ではなく、私が繰り返し遭遇した経験のために必要だった言葉である。
描画は物質的には完成するが、知覚的には完成しない。
戻るたびに変わる。
線は変わらないが、関係が変わる。
これが、ゆっくり描くことで学んだ最も重要なことかもしれない。
描画は「見たもの」を含むだけではなく、「見える能力」を変える。
写真が始まりを与え、描画がその一部を引き継ぐ。
線は残滓になり、残滓は知覚になり、知覚は次の線になり、その線がまた次の知覚の条件になる。
プロセスは続き、蓄積し、開かれたままである。
その開かれた場所に私は Apeiron を置く。
私はこれを学術論文としてではなく、実践から生まれたエッセイとして書いている。
Delay、Residue、Apeiron を完成した理論として提示するつもりはない。
科学的説明として受け入れてほしいわけでもない。
ただ、私が繰り返し遭遇した経験のために必要だった言葉を世界に置いてみたいのだ。
誰かが何かを見つけるかもしれない。
誰かが異議を唱えるかもしれない。
誰かが別の学問領域に持ち込み、私が想像しなかった何かを見つけるかもしれない。
誰かはまったく別の言葉を見つけるかもしれない。
それでいい。
意味を固定したくない。
経験を開いておきたい。
作品はすでに痕跡を蓄積し、残滓を生み、Delay の中に留まっている。
今度はこのアイデアが同じことをする番だ。
スタジオを離れ、他者の知覚に入り、私がまだ見ていない何かを見せるかもしれない。
おそらく実践とは、命題として世界に置かれたときにこうしたことが起きるのだろう。
線が引かれ、残滓になり、誰かがそれに出会い、違う見方をし、別のものを作る。
Delay は続く。
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