Thursday Night #5: 10/3/13 First Thursday

            Jen Erickson's show at the PUNCH gallery consisted of her graphite drawings and carvings for the series Dark Thaw. Each piece is composed primarily of circles meticulously drawn on or carved into a painted panel. The work is best viewed up close-the detail of each circle visible. It appears largely process-based. I can imagine Erickson sitting in her studio, drawing for hours upon hours, falling into a meditative trance of drawing circles. Her process seems to be just as important as the beautiful work it leaves us with. I'm curious about how the forms and clusters of circles formed. Some of the drawings appear more representational than others. Some are relatively abstract, while others look like trees, or more commonly, distorted maps. Erickson is interested in the growth and decomposition found in nature. The organic forms in her work reflect this quite well. The shading and highlights seem to present an image containing many layers and stages of growth and decay.
         On her website, Erickson has posted work from other projects. It all runs in the same vein; ideas of biology, science, mathematics, and data. She experiments with her circle, or zero, drawing. In the series Sad Math, the zeros she makes are presented in color and minimalism. The compositions are more open, expansive, and focused. She paints and draws on a panel just like she did for the work at PUNCH. The addition of a color element changes the work tremendously. For the piece pE = {(z, 6241), (b, 0)}, light blues and gauzy teals are painted on a white panel. Ephemeral yellow areas appear on the right side of the panel. The lines that the circles create are thin and seem to represent some detail of a landscape.  A mountain, perhaps. I think that with all of her work, Erickson is quite detailed without being precise. The beauty is in the exact messiness. I'm quite fond of her work. I think it serves well for thought, for meditation, for zoning out and tuning in. It's natural and airy and really quite gorgeous.

Dark Thaw detail

pE = {(z, 6241), (b, 0)} 

 

 



  Denton Crawford had work as part of the WIZARD BUSINESS show at SOIL. The pieces that most intrigued me were his faceless, shrouded figures that were presented as drawings. The collection of pen drawings reminded me of tattoo sketches, as well as those eighties prints with fierce women with unreasonably long nails on geometric backgrounds. Each of the drawings incorporated a solitary figure interacting with some geometric design. Cypress was the most intriguing of these forms. The negative space is highly important in the piece. As usual, a solitary, faceless figure is centered. A bright teal triangle surrounds the figure. Black pen and the white background form the wrinkles in the shroud that wraps around the figure. Some kind of tree in the background mimics the layers of clothing in method and appearance. A gradient from black to pink to white replaces the face of the reaper-esque being. The movement created by the diagonal tree branches is especially interesting with the downward point of the triangle. I think Crawford plays a lot with line and composition. I feel like there's a strong design element. But while his drawings are visually appealing, I don't feel that they have the same permanence as in Jen Erickson's work.

 

 

Cypress