Jensen, Joelle and Miriam Kienle, "Crude Metaphors: Postscript," Hot Shoe International, August/September, 2007, pp. 38 - 47
From contemporary art journals to recent drawing exhibitions, in "insider" and "outsider" contexts alike, there is a current affinity for obsessive drawing. Through the works of five international self-taught artists, the "Obsessive Drawing" exhibition, presently on view at the American Folk Art Museum, explores the aspects of society that provoke this obsession.
The works of the featured artists address facets of contemporary culture that can prove to be overwhelming on a day-to-day basis. Anxiety surrounding computer and consumer culture, systems of classification, environmental destruction or the sex industry pervade the exhibition. Several of the artists describe their process as a form of retreat and another describes it as a means of transcendence. As the title suggests, the drawings are obsessive and their makers can be categorized as compulsive. The curator, Brooke Davis Anderson, describes the artists’ use of drawing as a coping mechanism or a survival skill. This identification reveals a sincerity that could serve to separate these artists on display from the superstar-driven Chelsea art market. Certainly the words "sincerity," "obsession" and "coping mechanism" can describe the practices of academically trained artists and self-taught artists alike; however, these characteristics are less commonly celebrated (or at least, addressed with caution or buffered by irony) in the emerging artist showcases that set the stage in the commercial sphere.
Upon entering "Obsessive Drawing" the viewer is confronted with a monumental drawing of an apocalyptic orgy of transgender dominatrixes by Chris Hipkiss, entitled Lonely Europe Arm Yourself. As one scans the rest of the one-room exhibition, Hipkiss’ works appear radically different: they are narrative, representational and furthermore, the artist’s process feels degenerative rather than generative. Instead of retreating from the failures of contemporary culture, he embellishes and depicts the horror it inspires. In the ungrounded landscape of this thirty-five foot long, densely packed, epic drawing of phallic/vaginal buildings and androgynous figures, looking is complicated. Although the artist adheres to a birds-eye view, the scale and scroll-like quality of this swimming composition causes a feeling of instability and makes locating oneself in relation to the drawing difficult. One finds their bearings by focusing on the vignettes and poignant details amidst this pandemonium. Repeated are generators and power lines, smoke stacks, processions of scantly clad figures with sex toys and sardonic plays on words such as "Forever Fist"–riffing off of "Arm Yourself." The artist’s signature is yet another detail not to be overlooked. In the lower right hand quadrant is a barcode with "The Real Hip Kiss" written along the perimeter, commenting on consumer culture and artist as item.
Like Hipkiss, Charles Benefiel reacts to the mechanisms of numeric labeling rampant in contemporary society. Inspired by his frustration over our prevalent numerical codification, Benefiel creates what he refers to as a "dumb language." Each of Benefiel’s symbols is assigned a linguistic, numeric and phonetic code. The key to this code is printed in the wall text next to Random Numeric Repeater #9. The symbols are meticulously repeated in a linear pattern creating painting-scale drawings reminiscent of Minimalist Agnes Martin and Post-Minimalist Mel Bochner. Benefiel describes the piece as a response to the dehumanizing systems of identification, such as social security and tax ID numbers, that translate the value of the individual.
Benefiel is one of three artists in the exhibition united by rule-based, geometric composition. Eugene Andolsek and Martin Thompson, like Benefiel, cope with present-day anxieties through focused abstractions. Each artist attempts to control his environment by mentally retreating inward and tuning out the world around him. The wall text describes an aural experience integral to each artist’s process. Benefiel assigns basic sounds to each of his symbols making it possible to recite his drawings as musical compositions. Thompson murmurs his mathematical formulas as he generates his designs; Andolsek loses himself in the white noise of his radio playing in the background while creating visually rhythmic patterns.
Thompson’s monochrome diptychs of mirroring digitized designs on grid paper are plotted using a mathematical system based on multiples of ten. Reciting his equation like a song, he retains the complex sequence as he transfers it to the corresponding opposite image. When his calculation of DPI is off, he methodically removes a square from the margin and replaces the incorrectly colored one using an Exacto knife and tape. While Thompson’s compositions are made in isolation (solitary and self-alienating, as described by the artist), they are reminiscent of collectively created quilts or embroidery and also reference early computer technology, videogames and TV footage of the Gulf War. As the curator comments, "he struggles with the political and social realities of contemporary culture and uses his methodical art-making to create order in a chaotic world."
In the drawings of Eugene Andolsek, order is not what it appears to be. His hypnotic compositions, like Thompson’s, are laid out on grid paper but defy the grid. The colorful pattern is at first glance geometric and systematic, but upon closer inspection they are characterized by subtle inconsistencies that create a swirling rhythm. Throughout his life Andolsek, now eighty-years-old, could not escape his fear of slipping up at work and getting fired. The contained, colorful world of his compositions could be seen as a means of retreat into a place where inconsistency within the grid is permitted; although Andolsek’s artistic process appears to be more transcendent than regressive–the artist often wakes up from a trancelike state, radio humming and his compositions nearly complete.
Hiroyuki Doi, like the three aforementioned artists, limits himself to a singular shape–the circle. The artist creates fluid compositions that reference cosmographic maps or studies of biological forms likely to be found in a Petri dish. Doi allows the circles to germinate but, despite their density, resists the urge to fill the page from edge to edge. The forms hover in empty spaces, adding to their otherworldly presence. He, like Andolsek, describes his process in terms of transcendence and states, "something other than myself allowed me to make these works." It is his way of communing with the universe and connecting to society, which he represents with a sea of individual circles that compose his work. Although these works are meticulous and rely on repetition, there is an openness. They breathe. They are not mechanically driven. Doi expresses the importance of working with his hands in a world that tends to rely on communication through technological means. The resultant works simultaneously have physicality and an ethereal resonance.
Through the curator’s astute selection of artists working in the "horror vacui" tradition, she brings into focus issues that crowd our common consciousness. On a single sheet of paper each of these artists intensifies aspects of the human experience that we all cope with: "illness, loss, loneliness, fear and regret." Though their approaches are diverse, there is a common, compulsive thread. Like the five featured obsessionists, contemporary artists Paul Noble, Diana Cooper and James Siena, among others, process our current condition and navigate the information age through obsessive drawing, begging the question: what about contemporary culture ignites our obsession with the obsessive?
Sharon Louden’s current exhibition initially conjures associations with natural forms such as hair, cilia, bacilli or underwater life. Upon closer inspection, the lines in Louden’s varied works reveal themselves as playful, somber, energetic and enigmatic communities of form. The works go beyond representations of specific entities or minimalist explorations of media. They divulge, as the exhibition title alludes, their "Character." The artist not only imbues her carefully considered marks with personality–each line reacting to its neighbor to create a drama or dance–she activates the frame by giving the impression that it pursues and captures each unique moment.
In this exhibition of Louden’s paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures and animations, line ties all of her media together to expand our traditional notion of drawing. During an interview with the curator, Dede Young, Louden points to the significance of line in her work: "All my work is within drawing because of my extensive use of and dedication to the line as the source and backbone to my visual vocabulary. It is the line that defines the characters that translate the feelings, meanings, tensions and personalities that I look for within them." Louden’s various creatures morph into altered states in the nine years of work surveyed at the Neuberger, continually re-emerging to play different roles.
Louden’s drawings on paper and Mylar are some of the earliest works in the exhibit and reveal fundamental aspects of the artist’s visual language. In Flaps (1998), blue translucent lines gather at the lower left edge of the page. Gel medium is utilized in a way that gives each mark a three-dimensional, tubular quality. The lines’ fluid postures flop and float atop the Mylar’s faint blue grid. They nudge and lie on one another like sleepy animals clustered in a corner. Convening at the bottom of the page, these languid lines rest comfortably within the frame. Conversely, the lines in other drawings from the Flaps series (not present in this exhibition) stop in mid-motion,as if attempting to escape off the page.
In Louden’s animation, Footprints (2006), similar tube-like forms converge in enigmatic space. The resting lines, like actual footprints, retain the memory of movement. Whether fading in-and-out of the black background or wiggling in from the edges of the screen, the hand-drawn lines (which are scanned into the computer) take on certain manners. The frame in this work remains static throughout the course of the short digital projection. On the other hand, in Dance: Acts 1 through 5 (2006), the edges of this three-screen animation play an active role. Each frame shimmies and jumps to apprehend the skittish lines. The movements can be followed back-and-forth between the screens as the lines attempt to evade the frame. The screens are suspended from the ceiling and allotted ample space in the gallery, which allows for an uninterrupted viewing of the dance.
Motley Tails (2005), one of two sculptures on display, hangs in the center of the exhibition. Although one can enter the space of the sculpture–allowing for close interaction with the human-size, iridescent forms–the piece would benefit from its own environment. The separate manes of monofilament line are not grouped to form clear paths and do not coalesce as an installation. The gallery’s trappings and Louden’s adjacent works, viewable through large gaps between the hanging sculpture, interrupt Motley Tails to the point of distraction and serve to distance the viewer from the world Louden attempts to conjure. Yellow Tails (2004), however, assumes a dedicated environment, standing a few feet out from the corner wall. The mood of the work fluctuates as it simultaneously references comical Cousin It-like characters and ethereal sea creatures. Their Manic Panic infused, toy hair hangs limply in amassed clusters, yet each individual string is full of movement as the sinuous lines pool on the floor and reflect light.
Louden utilizes the effect of light on iridescent lines to an even greater extent in The Attenders (2003). The three selected prints hang in glass-free frames. Willowy tentacles accumulate in distinct groups separated by subtle shifts in color. The lines are made with either phosphorescent acrylic paint or water-based ink, barely visible in various shades of white and gray on white paper. The prints are given their own room, where the lights click on-and-off (with a brief fadeout) in equal intervals. The fluorescent lines, activated by the absence of light, have a powerful presence. As the room disappears into darkness, perspective fails and perception shifts. The two-dimensional forms become three-dimensional and appear to hover in a holographic environment. In the dark, Louden’s "characters" are liberated from their frames. As the light returns, impressions of glowing lines linger like a world of bacteria floating across the eye’s vitreous humor. The memory of these forms, momentarily juxtaposed over the newly visible physical marks, creates a dynamic interplay.
The survey of Louden’s work offers a representative sample of the artist’s exploration of line as it travels from the second dimension into the third, and then into animation. Her most successful works embody an energy. Moments are caught in the process of unfolding, revealing the importance of space and edge in all of her works. These varied borders and rooms provide the settings for the dramas of Louden’s "characters." They act as the arresting agents, holding their subjects in suspended states that envelop the viewer.
Three concurrent solo exhibitions at Feigen Contemporary featuring artists Jennifer Coates, Susanne Simonson and Nick Blinko form a divine comedy, conjuring visions of heaven, hell and purgatory. Coates’ celestial landscapes are infused with brilliant color and soft radiance; Simonson’s paintings of spectral figures exist between murky realms of longing, memory and physicality, and Blinko’s drawings depict demonic domains where piety has gone awry. Although disparate in tone, each artist presents a psychological terrain replete with nostalgic expressiveness.
Coates paints fantastical environments where atmospheric abstraction merges with detailed geometric or organic patterning. Tangled clusters creep into many of the landscapes, like kudzu beginning to blanket the topography. In Creeper vine-like forms disintegrate into a biomorphic field just below the horizon line. A brightly colored, tangled organism rises up from the dark pool that divides the painting in half. Coates’ work is ripe with mystical implications. In Softwall a faceted, multi-colored cloud pulsates above a dark void, emerging like an epiphany. Mythical landscapes, which combine amorphous natural forms, thin fields of color and dense areas of precision are reminiscent of Laura Owens and Peter Doig. Some of Coates’ works, including Softwall, have the potential to distinguish the artist from her contemporaries, while others simply strike a chord within a prevalent movement.
Simonson’s adjacent images show figures in peril, trapped between worlds. Like fleeting moments of stereoscopic vision, her photo-based paintings depict vaporous figures merging with ambiguous objects. Unlikely planes overlap to create settings of disquietude. The artist uses broad swaths of bright color to punch-up muted, fluid under-paintings. The paintings are most successful when they elude the flatness of the photographs from which they are derived and reveal complex areas of flux. In Winter Silence Simonson superimposes shifting profiles of a youthful face and layers of wistful expression to form a modeled bust. This unstable figure floats atop a transparent cube, which contains a winter landscape and encapsulates a strong sense of melancholia.
While Simonson contends with the world as mirage, Blinko plunges into an underworld of his own creation. Blinko, front man for the band Rudimentary Peni, creates anxiety-ridden dystopias rife with religious iconography, weaponry, crowds of scowling masks and death. Blinko’s masculine, gothic, punk rock sensibility dominates pages torn from notebooks of his tight, maniacal mark-making. The works in the exhibition that are more literal fulfill our expectation of “schizophrenic drawing,” like Birth of the Mad Babies or Boneyard Eruption. An untitled drawing distinguishes itself as scrawling marks give way to deliberate line-work, articulating a red billowing sky. To equal success, the geometric logic of Ununtitled II (Minutiae Marginalia) harnesses what threatens to be an entropic scene.
Blinko’s grotesques, like Simonson’s wraithlike figures and Coates’ surreal landscapes, explore realms of the human psyche through distinct alter-realities. Fantasy, melancholia and angst merge as Feigen Contemporary captures a menagerie of the supernatural in three divergent exhibitions.