The-Only-Way-Out

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on January 27, 2015 at 9:33pm

Curator’s Comments: 

 

These tightly rendered drawings generally illustrate inspiring scenes with a lucid photographic clarity.  But the piece that I’m most drawn to is the more poetic or interpretive Transition.  The delicate lacy pattern of the table cloth is lovingly described and detailed, offering a softly nostalgic entry into the table top tableau. The framed photograph provides a figurative presence, without the face assuming the most important role in the composition.  The inclusion of the brightly hued textile is a surprising relief from the achromatic values, while elevating the pattern hierarchically in the piece.  Formally the dark rectangles in the background further slow down the visual movement across the horizontal plane, and echo the slight irregularity of the wooden slats.   The adjacent piece entitled The Only Way Out is more spiritually illustrative and ethnically rousing, marking the socio-political qualities of work seen by some American WPA artists and printmakers, or their counterparts in the Taller de Graphica Popular.  Interestingly, the emotional power of the piece is in the specificity of the people involved in a universally laborious and potentially demoralizing human condition.  While the workers represent dignity in manual labor, the standing figure in the center becomes a heroic beacon, with a book to represent knowledge and self determination.  But despite the varying degrees of storytelling or political content, these are really beautiful drawings.