NOTES ON THE CHIAROSCURO SERIES
WORKS ON PAPER FROM 1997-1998__________________________________
In this series of works on paper, each drawing is composed of tiny cell-like images drawn with ink on separate pieces of thin Japanese paper. The ink bleeds onto a second fragment of paper, creating a ghost. These individual dark and light components are then affixed to one another; they are literally pieced together. These works explore the interplay of opposites. For example, incorporating the drawn image with its ghost heightens the impression that these drawings are simultaneously forming and dispersing. In addition, I am compelled by how the fragility of the paper and delicacy of the process serve as a counterpoint to the dark solidity of the images.
My works on paper and three- dimensional work are parallel activities that intersect and inform one another. While these drawings are not studies for sculpture, their additive process has a counterpart in the incremental way in which my sculptures are made. The sculptures are accretions of many sometimes hundreds - of hollow compartment-like units that are stiffened and stained with acrylics, pigments and sometimes wax, then hand sewn together. The stitches read as insistent lines and thereby allude to drawing. Indeed, they are like three-dimensional crosshatchings connecting the cloth elements to each other. In all my work, the repetition of similar units is meant to evoke and muse upon the way form occurs from the cellular to the cosmological.
Statement 