Preparing his first solo international exhibition, Todd Fuller’s multi disciplinary practice and passion for drawing is exposed through his hand drawn animation Letters to Theo. Fuller’s recent spell at NG Art Creative Residency in Eygalières, France, enabled Fuller to submerge himself in the rich historical and diverse cultural landscape of Provence. Letters to Theo is a direct response to Saint Paul de Mausole Monastery, where Vincent Van Gogh was hospitalised, and painted many of his greatest works. Fuller’s new work plunges audiences into explorations and questions of human experience through visual storytelling and immersive narrative.

GB: As a multi disciplinary artist, you have integrated drawing, animation, performance and dance into your practice. What themes does your diverse range of disciplines and creative outputs enable you to explore?

TF: The variety of disciplines I work in allows me to pick and choose the artform that is right for the theme I want to explore. Utilising a breadth of mediums, I often explore the human condition and am interested in life and death, creation and destruction. Animation is about creating, documenting and destroying through erasure, so it makes sense to deal with those themes through animation. At the heart of everything I do is drawing. I feel like drawing is the most primal of mediums, it is a gift that we are given at birth. Drawing sits within the capacity of every human being regardless of race, gender, wealth or socio economic status. You can rub your foot on the floor and you’re drawing, you’re mark making. Drawing is implicit to the human condition, so when I am exploring themes about humanity, it makes sense for me to draw.

GB: Your works have an understanding of place, history, narrative and context. What do you invite viewers to explore through your hand drawn animation?

TF: Narratives are the way we understand and define ourselves, how we present ourselves to others, engage and create empathy. Storytelling is an integral part of being human. To me, drawing is the ultimate storyteller. In a place like St Pauls, these stories are etched into the very fabric of the building. There are many layers in my animated works which suggest trails that audiences can explore. In the case of Letters to Theo, I worked with the characters of Vincent and Theo to try and make sense of Saint Paul de Mausole Monastery. This story presents many questions about what is to be human and to be either at one or disconnected with the world around us. In an age where mental health is such a big deal, these are the things we should be talking and thinking about. There is also a familial story that sits within the work, which questions how we connect with one another, and about brotherhood. I want to create a foundation that my audience can come to and fill in their own blanks. My way of structuring a story has lots of holes and space for interpretation and room to move and question.

GB: How do your hand-drawn animations differ from other methods of filmmaking?

This method of animation is about trace and history. No matter how hard you try, the remnants of everything you do is captured on the page. There is this idea that every situation is the consequence of many other moments, choices, decisions and incidentals. Nothin exists in a vacuum, every second is the culmination of thousands of others before it. The remnants scattered across the page suggest the paradigm. It makes physics and history explicit. Similarly, stories are ephemeral. They don’t exist as physical things.This way of storytelling makes it permanent, whilst still maintaining fluidity, as stories are fraught, fragile and susceptible to memory.

GB: How did being in France at NG Art Creative Residency, impact your work, in comparison to working within the Australian landscape and Australian Art History?

TF: My palette shifted so dramatically. Despite dealing with heavy subject matter, my palette was joyous at times, a tension I found really interesting. It was also informed by the environment. The colour of the light was different in Provence, so everything radiated with a warm, golden glow. That landscape is very hard not to be seduced by, and it instantly resonated through my work. And of course, how do you work with Van Gogh without that rich palette or sunflower fields. You have undertaken residencies both in Australia and in Europe. Upon arriving to NG Art Creative Residency, how did you begin your creative process and was it different to how you had approached other residencies? I think the biggest thing I have learned about residencies is if you procrastinate and don’t immerse yourself in the landscape and draw every day, the period of time between when you arrive and when you find the kernel of inspiration to sustain you, is longer. I am quite militant on myself to arrive and start, making sure I have all my materials ready. There should be no excuses for why I can’t get there and immediately get amongst it. That was a big learning I applied to my residency at NG Art Creative Residency. After three days stumbling I found Saint Paul Monastery and instantly knew there’s my subject.

GB: During your creative process in ‘Letters to Theo’, you used a trace and erasure technique. What evolution does this enable your hand drawn narrative to take?

TF: There was one particular scene which was a breakthrough moment with my drawings trace offering the rest of the narrative. It is an interior drawing of Theo on the bed in Van Gogh’s room and he almost has two versions of himself that get up and gesture around him. The trace took on a different element that wasn’t just about physics or mapping motion, it was about a state of mind and state of place, almost able to depict multiple personalities. It was about mourning, loss, and a place of discovery all at once. In this moment erased figures suggested the complexity of the character in a moment.

GB: What is your underlying interest in the power of animation and the artistry involved?

TF: I always struggled that the things I drew on the page never matched the drawings in my head which could move, breathe, dance and react.In my head a drawing is rarely static. It felt natural to explore how drawings move through animation. Procedurally, I am addicted to drawing, and I am addicted to the process and its routine. It is a regimented process you have to commit yourself to. You become a slave to the act. There is an illogical addiction to this process and I need that structure to survive in the studio. The idea that my animations are drawings dancing is a very real thing and makes sense in the journey of my life, and the lessons that were taught to me growing up in a rural community as a boy who loved doing different things like dance. It is not surprising that all these things permeate and intersect. They are a part of me and a part of my life.