Drawings Continued features new work by three artists that have taken on ambitious projects that require rigorous mark making. These artists share a sense of consistency, meticulousness and meditative rhythm. Included in the exhibition are new canvases by William Brovelli from the Timeline projec... Read more
Drawings Continued features new work by three artists that have taken on ambitious projects that require rigorous mark making. These artists share a sense of consistency, meticulousness and meditative rhythm. Included in the exhibition are new canvases by William Brovelli from the Timeline project, recent drawings by Paul Glabicki from ACCOUNTING for… (the ledger series) and the three latest large scale drawings by Diane Samuels from her work-in-progress Mapping Sampsonia.
William Brovelli: Timeline project (canvases)
The Timeline project is a series of ongoing works that have a specific focus on the progression of the mark. The canvases utilize the grid format. Characters are inked onto the canvas until the image area is filled to capacity. Characters are then whitewashed from the canvas and replaced with new characters. The process continues daily until the canvas is purchased or shut down. A canvas must be worked on for at least nine months before it is released. The buyer (after two years) is given the option to temporarily return the canvas to the artist for a period of nine months at which time half of the canvas will be reworked; this allows for the canvas to hold a record of two separate time periods on one surface. Choice, commitment and loss are underscored in this process.
Paul Glabicki: ACCOUNTING for… (the Ledger Series) The “ACCOUNTING for…” series seeks to continue the ritual of the ledger, actually transcribing each page of a 1930s Japanese ledger as a foundation and underlying structure for the application of new information. Layered over and around each transcribed page are maps, calendars, fragments of newspaper text, parts of personal letters, and a multitude of measurements, counting systems, and diagrammatic images – bits of incoming daily information both mundane and personally significant to the artist. A careful viewer may decipher letter postmarks, information about architectural structures, multiplication tables, clues about the time of the year in which the drawing was made, multiple languages and writing systems, and other data “accounting for” thoughts, observations, images, associations, and events experienced or collected during each drawing’s creation. The project will end after the final page of the ledger is transcribed and the final new accounting process is complete.
Diane Samuels: Mapping Sampsonia (Part III new work 2009-2010) Mapping Sampsonia is a work-in-progress that is based on the people, the place, and the history of a tiny inner-city alley in Pittsburgh, Sampsonia Way, where Samuels has lived since 1980. The work is literally about the street –the roadbed about which Samuels says, “Over the years the road surface has been marked by a spectacular accumulation of cracks and potholes that trace a history and an archeology of the alley and the people who use it. The roadbed looks like a giant dark scroll covered with a delicate and beautiful line drawing that grows in complexity over time.”
Drawing minute circles with a very fine pen, Diane Samuels spends months mapping small sections of her alley on handmade Abaca paper. Ultimately the work demonstrates a microscopic way of seeing and creating rooted in patience. The new pieces are romantic sublimes of mapmaking, tactile renderings of a few feet of cracked asphalt that are profuse and surprising as new found lands.
