Drawing#1 represents some of the diverse approaches to contemporary drawing in which artists are engaging. No longer limited to the preparatory sketch, contemporary drawing ranges from pencil on paper, to the conceptual, and to the three dimensional. Unlike painting, drawing has never been deemed 'dead' by critics nor artists. By nature it can be direct and intimate and its qualities of immediacy can capture the essence of the moment; it is art that can be produced in a bedroom, an airport lounge, on the bus - all that is required is imagination, creativity and skill.

In Vitamin D:New Perspectives in Drawing, Emma Dexter positions the practice of drawing at the centre of contemporary art. She writes, 'Described crudely, contemporary art currently follows two main trajectories: the post-Conceptual and the neo-Romantic. Crucially, it is within the field of drawing that the inherent tensions and contradictions of these two directions are intriguingly played out'. [Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing, Phaidon: London, 2005].

Jane Anderson

Ben Cove

Richard Talbot

Abbi Torrance

David Harker

Hannah Keba

John Timberlake

Process over outcome is the hierarchy within Ben Cove's practice. Objects are sometimes constructed to perform particular tasks, or act as sculptural pieces in their own right and are exhibited alongside evidence of their processes. Cove's training in architecture is reflected in his methodologies and gives rise to an interest in the relationship between architectural philosophies, social expectation and the effects of rigid ethics on the individual.

Drawing is central to Richard Talbot's studio practice, although he thinks of himself as a sculptor. Using a process [geometric linear perspective] that involves producing a complex matrix, forms associated with architecture, maps, vessels and containers are generated. This web of lines acts as scaffolding in which the images are created and then held. As 'Two Paper cutouts' suggests, drawing becomes a sculptural activity through the process of cut and construction.

Abbi Torrance works with drawing, fabric, stitch, photography and video. Looking to the history of art and notions of genre and technique, Torrance extracts visual poetry from the everyday and explores ways of readdressing traditional art techniques within contemporary practice. 'Text book girls # 4 (wide eyes)', 2003, is one of a series of 15 drawings representing images of women taken from old medical and sexual text books - a stark antithesis to the glossy media images of women.

David Harker's 'Telegraph' (2006) is one of a series of drawings depicting places of shelter, transit and communication. Avoiding sentimentality, these intricate drawings offer remote views of the countryside and suggest a calming sense of emptyness, a refuge from the draining clutter of the city. Inspired in part by Japanese graphic art and contemporary Chinese printmaking, Harker is also influenced by Gerhard Richter's approach to landscape painting and Alsem Kiefer's exploration of spatial landscapes.

'Room Drawing' (2004), like many works by Hannah Keba questions the limits of drawing as a medium - whether drawing is a final outcome or a process, described as a noun or a verb. Scrawls of fragments of conversation once held in this room line the walls and furnishings, forming a permeable membrane between surface and support. This piece explores the idea of automatic writing and the unconscious action and playfully considers the point at which the mark may overtake the identity of the object.

John Timberlake's practice is underpinned by the legacies and practices of Conceptual art, using predominantly photography, painting and drawing. Characterised by a critical engagement with Romantic pictorialism, histories and and narratives of landscape, notions of utopia and the sublime, critics have remarked on its schizophrenic qualities and its sense of fragmentation. 'Colony 6' (2006) is part of a series of drawings on photographs which play with contrasts in scale, modernist grids and shifting perspectives.