Art: Typewriter drawing looks easy in the hands of Keira Rathbone

The humble typewriter has taken a bit of a bashing since its old rival, the word processor, came into being, and was then pretty much forgotten altogether when we all decided to invite computers into our homes full-time. Now those beautifully complex mechanical machines are only found on the desks of first year art students (all of them) to show off to their new housemates that they’re edgy as hell and really enjoy things that are second hand.

Unless you’re Keira Rathbone. This particular British artist has taken that first-year fad and turned it into the focus of her artistic practice, creating images from repeated Xs, Os and Ts that she hammers into renderings of famous London landmarks, portraits of American presidents and Grace Jones – lots of Grace Jones.

These aren’t just drawings that have been copied on the typewriter either, Keira regularly draws (life types?) from life, sitting out in the open air for hours at a time using a highly-developed spatial awareness to turn what she sees in front of her into these extraordinary coded images.