Accumulations
Accumulations, 1993
Smoke on acrylic plastic Variable dimensions Collection of the artist To learn more about The Big Giveaway of these works, click here. During an intense period of experimentation with materials and mark-making, I had explored the use of flame as a drawing tool – in particular for the series of works called the “Remains.” In addition to ink drops and other techniques to make process-oriented works, I tried to make drawing with candles on paper, wood, and glass panels without much success. I had read about sfumato. Leonardo Da Vinci used this painting technique of famous works such as the Mona Lisa, and he reportedly described the sfumato technique as “without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the picture plane.” I thought to try and make drawings with smoke itself—and the most effective means turned out to be using candles. This was not without difficulty, in that to control the smoke one had draw overhead as the smoke lifted off the candle wick, but keeping the candle flame from burning into/through or setting the entire substrate or target support material on fire. After few weeks of practice, I was able to learn a technique which accomplished that goal, that is, drawing with fire without setting fires. The process was hypnotic, placing the candle by hand, allowing the carbon to accumulate sufficiently -- wax pouring down my arm -- pulling it away, then moving on to the next area. Looking at the pieces in process, I was struck by the suggestion of single-cell forms from nature. The clear plastic panels resembled both cosmic shapes like galaxies viewed by telescope, but perhaps more strongly associated with biological forms in slides viewed by microscope. I was also attracted to the motion that these panels could have different readings if assembled in different configurations. Seen in a linear arrangement and read “left to right” they might suggest the passage of time or different stages of the same single view. Alternatively, they could be seen as a unified whole, a larger unit or entity viewed in parts, as if through window panes. As I amassed a volume of the images, I began showing them in my Brooklyn studio and applying to group exhibitions at non-profit galleries around New York. Holly Block, then director of the nonprofit gallery Art in General selected a group of these works for a show entitled “Re-Marks”, which was ostensibly about new directions in drawing. |
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