A FLURRY of coloured dots are trapped in suspended animation in the Bluecoat’s Vide, like a shower of painted hailstones frozen in time or rays of light from a rainbow magnified millions of times.

In a room farther along the corridor, a man is marking the wall with white chalk on a piece of waxed string – the result a strangely colourless searchlight against a charcoal grey backdrop.

This is drawing, but not as we know it.

The work of 11 artists make up the Bluecoat’s new exhibition, The End of the Line: Attitudes in Drawing.

Few of them have sat down with a sheet of paper and a pencil to create their pieces, which range from animation to installations.

“We wanted to do a show about drawing, but not as a preparatory step towards making a sculpture or another piece of art,” explains Bluecoat curator Sara Parsons, who worked with the Hayward Gallery, on London’s South Bank, in organising the exhibition.

“Some of the artists have exhibited in the UK before and their work is a step away from simple mark making.”

The shower of coloured dots belongs to Monika Grzymala, who usually works in gaffer tape, making drawings in space rather than on paper.

Her work, Farbrauschen/ negative space, has been specially created for the Bluecoat’s Vide, a space three storeys high. It will not be visiting other galleries on the tour, for which she is creating different works, so this is the only chance to view it.