Get in Line, Contemporary artists are pushing their pens and pencils in new directions
John Dorfman
Art and Antiques
Winter 2014-15
Contemporary artists are pushing their pens and pencils in new directions and letting viewers draw their own conclusions. At the Drawing Center in New York’s Soho District- the only museum dedicated entirely to drawing- one of the current exhibitions is about sewing, knitting and weaving. Titled “Thread Lines” it features works that are actually made of thread as well as drawings in which traditional media are used to mimic or emulate the textile arts…
…Brace’s raw materials are clouds, mist, water and ice, and after looking closely at her drawings the viewer is apt to be undecided about whether these are cataclysmic events in some future global warming endgame scenario or just deployments of form and shadow. Katina Huston also draws abstractly on Mylar, though her works contain color. Works of hers such as Nasturtium with Gold and Map of the World layer elements that suggest nature, such as leaves, petals, and branches, in a collage-like fashion on a transparent background. Huston hangs actual leaves and other objects from the ceiling of her studio to let light shine through them and then draws the glowing shadows they make. The result is both naturalistic and abstract.
With so much contemporary talent going into drawing, the medium- define it how you will- is truly coming into its own as a standalone phenomenon. “The Drawing Center was founded because drawing was perceived as a handmaiden to other art forms, as a second-class citizen.” Says Gilman. “For a while the Center tended to function as making up for lost ground, but I don’t have to define drawing as separate anymore-it’s been accepted, and now we can integrate in back in. That’s what I find so exciting.”