Tag: drawing

Toyin Ojih Odutola at jackshainman.com

Behind Toyin Ojih Odutola’s portrait-like drawings (including this 2017 artwork from New York Art Tours archives) are fictional narratives, hinted at through the images but not detailed in words.  Her latest body of work opens on-line this week at Jack Shainman Gallery as protesters around the world demand respect for black lives and justice for George Floyd and others killed by police.  Ojih Odutola’s new work continues to picture the complexity of black subjectivity in an uncharacteristic pairing of images and texts in which, as the artist puts it, “exactitude is elusive.”  Instead, meaning comes from the gap between pictures and words, a place that prompts viewers to consider how their expectations inform interpretation.

Toyin Ojih Odutola, Manifesto, charcoal, pastel and pencil on paper, 18 ¾ x 23 ¾ inches, 2017.

Louise Bourgeois’ ‘Drawings ’47-’07’ at hauserwirth.com

Louise Bourgeois’ spiders may be her best-known work (this image from New York Art Tours’ archives captured a bronze arachnid appearing to scale a wall at the American Museum of Natural History), but for 70-years of the late artist’s career, drawing played a key role in expressing states of mind.  Hauser & Wirth Gallery’s inaugural on-line exhibition features a selection of drawings from 1947-2007 that channel Bourgeois’ unconscious and personal history.

Louise Bourgeois, Spider I, bronze, 50 x 46 x 12 1/4 inches, 1995.

Rita Ackermann at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

A haze of cool colors hovers over and obscures energetic line drawings featuring human figures in Rita Ackermann’s new paintings at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, creating a juxtaposition between painterly gesture and drawing.  Titled ‘Mama,’ each painting links in title to a feminine source while channeling an Ab Exp style better known for its male adherents.  Simple drawings of circles and an occasional animal add in a child’s touch, further complicating the family relationships alluded to in the paintings. (On view in Chelsea through April 11th).

Rita Ackermann, Mama, Midsummer Night’s Dream, oil, acrylic, and ink on linen, 77 x 65 inches, 2019.

Melanie Baker at Cristin Tierney

The man in the foreground of this huge charcoal, graphite and pastel drawing by Melanie Baker leans forward conspiratorially, his own identity concealed as he shields the figure before him from view.  Ironically framed on each side by lit sconces, the two shadowy figures seem to have paused in the halls of power to engage in an intense and private discussion that Baker invites us to question.  (On view on the Lower East Side at Cristin Tierney through Feb 22nd).

Melanie Baker, Pomp and Sycophants, charcoal, graphite, and pastel on paper mounted on Dibond, 72 x 120 inches, 2019.

Zipora Fried at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

Though her lined-based, labor-intensive drawings have been described as resisting language in favor of the emotional potential of color, Zipora Fried’s own words best describe the inspiration for her latest work.  She explains that the ‘sky and mud colored lizards, soft-toned cicada shells, sunsets echoing exploding worlds…,” the tides and sands of Lamu Island, Kenya prompted her vivid color choices.  Short repeated pencil strokes and tonal variety make each image appear to shimmer in an unfixed meditation on her experience of the island.  (On view in Chelsea at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. through Jan 18th).

Zipora Fried, To Those Who Know How to Laugh, colored pencil on archival museum board, 80 x 54 inches, 2019.