2016- 2022 – The Shape of your Absence and Given Forms.

The drawings begin by tracing forms or parts of forms such as hands, heads, frames, or French curves. The choice of form typically demonstrates a tension between a hard, machine-made edge and the wavering, soft edge of a figure that has been traced from life. The “actualness,” particularly of the figures, is important to me, and I think of them as “given forms.” Where the tracing overlaps in the drawing, it can indicate a gesture or signal movement such as holding or pushing. It subtly alludes to emotional states and relationships between people or between people and their environment. I find this impulse to document one’s body elemental and recurrent in the work of art and artists across histories, such as Ana Mendieta, David Hammons, and the handprints of the Cueva de Las Manos. The most recent drawings incorporate multiple patterns that overlap, camouflage, and confound. The patterns are motifs developed over time in my studio and form a personal lexicon which acts in the packed way of a symbol or certain poetry, elemental but buzzing with association and metaphor. They emerge out of my 25-year practice of drawing and exploration of line on paper.