Anna Barriball, installation view, The Fruitmarket Gallery, 2012; Courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London; Photo: Ruth Clark. Left to right: Copper pipes, 2011; Mirror Window Wall I, II, III, IV, 2008; Untitled, 2008

Copper pipes is an example of the way that Barriball uses materials that she works with on paper, from paint, ink and pencil, to create drawings or paintings that embody a three-dimensional quality from the texture or sheen, amplified by its mode of display. Sheets of paper that are rolled and inclined against the wall appear as copper pipes, with a density and lustre anchored by the coats of copper-tinted acrylic paint. In Mirror Window Wall I, II, III, IV, strongly marked paper rubbings of a wall result in a series of drawings that are titled in recognition of its framing – installed behind glass that one can peer through as a window into a wall, or as a reflective mirror. The works speak to a preoccupation not only with acquiring transfers to capture the imprints and textures of surfaces, but also a deep interest in the way that surfaces are inhibiting and constrain, yet can be imbued to evoke an expansion of space beyond the architectural confines of interior and exterior.

Anna Barriball, Draw (fireplace), 2005; DVD Video projection; edition of three; Duration 10 min. 30 sec.; Courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London

From walls to doors and fireplaces, these surfaces that wrap around or border zones of habitation are treated as animate. Draw (fireplace) is a video installation in a darkened end of a room, of a sheet of tracing paper that is placed over the fireplace. From gentle movements of the tracing paper to intervals when it is adhered against the grate, the chimney as a passage through which air flows becomes personified as a person drawing in breath.

Draw (fireplace) is one of several works in the exhibition that seem to veer away from the technique of drawing. Yet, in this sculptural intervention re-presented as a video projection, the search for the life beneath with an undercurrent of seeking to attribute presence to the invisible, is a thread that runs through Barriball’s works. Perhaps, as aptly titled, one draws not just to form marks and lines, but as an expression of breath and life. As a way to enter Barriball’s works, this idea opens a view to seeing her works as explorations of air in motion – within and through objects and spaces, as breath and wind, and as passages between the animate and inanimate, life and death.

Anna Barriball, 36 Breaths, 2002; Ink on found photographs; 45.6 x 45.6 cm; Collection of Octavius and Joanne Black

This idea takes form in 36 Breaths, composed from the blowing of a drop of black ink placed right in the centre of each of 36 photographs arranged into a grid, creating a symphony of splatters. As black and white found photographs of people from a previous generation, there is a sense that these are images of people perhaps no longer existing. The drawing and releasing of one’s breath becomes an unsettling gesture, as if wanting to breathe life into these unknown individuals, to reawaken them, whilst at the same time, with an exhalation creating a blotch that physically blackens and erases them from history.

sspspss…UM biddle BOP, 1997; enamel paint on trace Mylar; 7.5 x 6 m (24 x 20 ft); Private Collection, Topanga, California

At the entrance to the gallery’s first level of Ingrid Calame‘s solo exhibition at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, the pale green enamel of sspspss…UM biddle BOP appear like forceful strokes and splatters that drip down the wall, unfolding across the ground. Though emerging as paintings with energetic and abstract shapes, Calame’s works evolve from a painstaking process that originates from the representation of cracks and stains of the physical environment.

Calame first began tracing blobs in her studio in 1996, before venturing into the streets to trace the shapes, textures and stains on pavements, cultural and industrial sites. Driven by a desire to understand the world through acts of reconstruction, particularly from places that have been overlooked or disregarded, these tracings are then redrawn, layered to form a constellation of interlocking shapes, with enamel filled in within the lines.

Vu-eyp? Vu-eyp? Vueyp? Vu-eyp?, 2002; enamel paint on aluminium; 61 x 61 cm (24 x 24 in); Courtesy the artist

The array of colors across the drawings and paintings appear to compensate for the neglected histories of the sites that inform Calame’s works. From the pastel hues of tracing lines across drawings, to rich shades of green against deep red and purple in Vu-eyp? Vu-eyp? Vueyp? Vu-eyp?, the tenor of the exhibition is upbeat, and appears to convey a sense of discovery from the act of recreation. This quality emanates also from several onomatopoeic titles whose meanings are indecipherable yet express an aural experience of the shapes and paints.

#334 Drawing (Tracings from the L.A. River and ArcelorMittal Steel), 2011; coloured pencil on trace Mylar; 285 x 183 cm (112 x 72 in); Courtesy the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects

#334 and #346 are recent drawings that reveal part of Calame’s intensive working process. Backed by a team while working on sites, Calame obtained tracings from the dried-out concrete riverbed of the L.A. River, hand-stencilled numbers on the factory floors of the ArcelorMittal Steel factor floors and the cracks in an abandoned wading pool at the Perry Street Projects in Buffalo, New York. These tracings each bearing their unique marks, were assembled, retraced using coloured pencil, to form paths of new meanings derived from the residues of time. The second floor of the gallery also features a large wall drawing from the L.A. River, created in-situ.

#346 Drawing (Tracing from the Perry Street Projects Wading Pool, Buffalo, NY), 2011; coloured pencil on trace Mylar; 183 x 285 cm (72 x 112 in); Courtesy the artist and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects

Calame (b. 1965, Bronx, New York) currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. The exhibition featuring drawings and paintings from 1997 to 2011 runs till 9 October 2011, and forms a part of the Edinburgh Art Festival.