Via Flickr:
Decoration and Delicacy
pen and ink and graphite on cream colored drawing paper 7"x10"
June 2011
This drawing explores my feelings toward writing explanations about my art. It’s about where honesty, interpretation, meaning, relevance, creative license, subconscious ramblings and artistic bull shit intersect and commingle and where the artist resides in this process within the context of her environment (both internal and external). Could this be about something else? Yes and no. I could describe it differently...
The figure’s facial features are removed. They are floating in the air to the right, still trying to give expression. A thought trails them (the broken line). This isn’t bothering the figure because her attention is projecting forward to an object and a construct. The upper limbs have morphed into graphical depictions of ineffective utility. Her posterior is the most solidly realized form within the drawing for compositional (and other) reasons. Her lower legs and feet deteriorate into a modernist aesthetic. It is not apparent if the figure is moving away from the scribbles in the lower right corner or if the scribbles are moving toward her (think “The Langoliers”). The scribbles could represent a fragmented history. The large bird to the left (composed of a tangled line of ink) depicts delicacy and decoration . The bird’s alimentary canal (depicted in graphite) is a snarky remark (or a snarkymark, ha!) on the substantiality of projecting attributes of delicacy and decoration. The bird has no legs, only wilted tail feathers to counterpoint the idealizations of the figure’s ‘figure’ and is looking down with unassuming curiosity at the line coming towards it. Floating above the bird’s head (or where it should be) are the bird’s facial features. This is quite tragic for the bird because it reminds it of how often bird facial features (and the head supporting these structures) are removed in the process of becoming comestibles. Coming out of the figure’s knee is a deformity (with its facial features still in place) looking and smiling at the larger bird. A smaller bird (mid right) composed of circles and shading is hunkering somewhere between irreverence and capricious whimsy. These elements create a conceptual tension that clashes against the compositional balance. With costumed force and beguiling aggression the figure (indignantly indignant) obsequiously compels while simultaneously denying and conceding all condescension.
It’s about what it is and what it isn’t. It’s in the drawing and not the explanation anyways.
