Old Statement

Right now, I am invested in drawing. I am using graphite, colored pencil, ink, and gouache on paper. I want to weave the paper's physical surface into the forms drawn on top of it. This weaving has a rhythm, like that of a braid. I want to show the surface as the place of habitation, to keep the image as close to the viewer as possible, as physically and awkwardly present as possible. Attaching the image to the surface keeps it from sinking into a time-based moment, where air circulates and people grow old.

To begin this series of drawings, I imagined how objects look when no one is around to look at them. They are not in use, and they are not particularly waiting to be used. The lights are off and it is quiet; the objects become shadowy presences in no particular time or place.

A tradition in still-life painting employs its subjects in the service of a particular light, to show the effects of light as it falls on forms. The objects become employees of the picture, while the light sweeps across and creates a whole for the viewer to consume. The objects in my drawings are hard-edged. They are the opposite of the blank paper around them and, with their solidity, create a dichotomy between up-close and infinity. They are in a situation that is void of an outside light source. Instead, the light is a product of the drawing itself, and of the drawing’s woven rhythm. The light builds up and falls away. An example of this is in Bridge, where the darks gather in the seams of the collaged paper and shift where a new piece of paper begins.

A few years ago, I began looking at art that flattened representation, art that chose to stack objects rather than have them recede. Early American folk art, Egyptian art, and eastern Indian art all informed my commitment to explore disrupted spaces, or rather spaces that allow details to carry real weight. My drawings depict common objects that have been taken out of context and put into a context of their own, amongst one another. Wholeness is built slowly and literally, as each object touches another and thereby builds a wall.