6.25.11 - 8.6.11
These drawings are echoes of a certain vernacular visual culture of drawn images: cartoons, children's book illustrations, and the myriad throw-away drawings that we create in our everyday lives whether to work out a problem or out of sheer boredom. They emerge distorted by obsessively pushing them to a level of finish well beyond what is merited, and by removal from their native habitat. Through drawing, I immerse myself in a space or an idea. Different drawing media suggest their own universe, and I make bodies of work that are unified through being made of the same material. I use commonplace, overlooked, and sometimes obsolete media, always with an eye toward evoking a certain tradition or language of drawing, whether it be the old-master qualities of silverpoint or the amateurish clumsiness of ballpoint pen. I revisit memories, and often manifest latent pre-adolescent fantasies. Though the aim may be nostalgia, or beauty, or Mid-western values, there lies a sense of unease, an anxiety just beneath the surface. Always, the images are laden with a sense of failure, a pathetic disappointment, accepted with good humor.