The Language of Drawing - The national gallery, London

Michael Landy (in studio): At the moment I am drawing paintings. I am not drawing real women, I am drawing paint. That is kind of how I began as a child; you begin with people putting things in front of you and you copying them- so all of that is intriguing and is how an artist can find their own language within that- you reference it but at the same time trying to make it yours. Michael Landy (in studio): I really enjoy drawing it and I have done it in all different scales. I find it, the faces and the bodies, very sculptural in that sense. Michael Craig-Martin (in studio): When you draw them you get to know the paintings so unbelievably well, I know things about the drawings I have drawn that I don't think anybody else knows, because I have looked at it so closely and have thought about it so much in trying to get certain things right in what is going on. Michael Craig Martin: There has always been something very extraordinary about Michael, he is a very sophisticated innocent and people have trusted him, he gives people confidence that something can come of giving him an opportunity, and the reason why people do it continually, ever more so, is because it always produces something worthwhile, something interesting and something important. Sir Peter Blake: What's really interesting is that his progress has always been a destructive period and then almost like a rehab of starting to draw again each time; I mean he destroyed his whole life; he destroyed everything he owned, and then started to make the tiniest little etchings of weeds like a rebirth, then he had the big skip at South London Gallery where he asked all the artists to give a piece to be thrown away, which was the destructive phase, and then he did those extraordinary portraits, one of which I sat for. So in a way this fits in to that continuum, this is a very productive period, and brilliant drawings. People just would know- if you talked to somebody about Michael I mean it would be a little bit like the "brick syndrome"wouldn't it? Carl Andre's bricks or Tracey's bed. They would say"oh Michael Landy he threw everything away"and they wouldn't know that he draws... and these are wonderful drawings Michael Landy: I don't think I will end up with an exhibition of drawings, well I would be surprised, but this is my way into it, and I am interested in other people that come here to draw and copy things, and as when I was at school people used to taunt me saying that I didn't have any imagination and that I was only good at copying... it seems to be the same story today, in fact I have members of staff saying that to me [laughs].