My exhibition opened at the Memphis arts organization Crosstown Arts, located inside a converted Sears warehouse.
The opening was wonderful.
It’s ironic that artists spend so much time alone, working introspectively, only to find ourselves in the middle of crowded cocktail party-like environment at our openings. And yet, despite how counterintuitive it feels, when I’m lucky enough to find myself at my own opening, I relish in the fact that other people are engaging with my work, giving it a whole new life that it can’t have here with just me in the studio.
Twenty years ago I decided to try my hand at a body of abstract work. I’d always loved abstraction but wasn’t sure if I could actually pull it off. This show is about the process I’ve slowly built over the past two decades of generating abstract imagery from my imagination in my sketchbook.
The show will have a nice long three-month run, lots of time to gestate and sink in.
Here’s the show statement:
THE EARTHWORM AND THE HAWK is the overlap between two states of being.
In the private and non-verbal world of my sketchbook, I burrow deep, generating drawings intuitively from my imagination. As the pages fill up, I step back and shift perspective, becoming more objective. The lay of the land comes into sharp focus. Here I map out, pose questions, and act decisively.
Because these modalities are distinct from one another, it takes time and patience
to figure out ways of unifying them. Their push/pull tendencies can disrupt as much
as facilitate. It’s a continual process. Like two rocks rubbed together just the right way,
the friction between the searcher and the strategist can generate sparks or a
full blown explosion.
And here are some installation shots.
