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'Hand Drawn': Vibrant Exhibit Puts Emphasis on the Hand MadeBy Peter Dudek - October 04, 2008
Special to iBerkshires
 | | 'Geometra' by Shawn Hanegraaf |
PITTSFIELD — The Storefront Artist Project's "Hand Drawn" is a large, rambling exhibition of drawings by more than 20 artists, most of whom live in the Berkshires.
Don't put off visiting this exhibit, it ends Oct. 12.
The variety of drawings reflects the group dynamic that went into the selection process. Each Storefront board member invited artists to participate and the result is a cacophony of representational renderings, medical anatomical studies, tattoo-inflected portraits, random-mark making, photo-based studies and other types of drawing all mixed together. Conceptual or content similarity was not a goal, and the show is all the better because of it.
Catherine Delphia has several pieces, including "Austrian Freshwater Turtle" and "Muscular Anatomy P. Poliocephalis" (otherwise known as a fruit bat). Both images are meticulous and delicate graphite renderings of the insides and outside of these creatures. Delphia plies her talents as a medical illustrator and these works are from that part of her artistic life.
It is no surprise that Shawn Hanegraaf works in a tattoo parlor. His obsessively detailed "Geometra" (a fictional beauty if there ever was one) is a portrait of a female with a full-body tattoo. It's as if someone afflicted with horror vacui drew upon her skin. Lacelike doodling swirls about, finding its way into every crevice of her flesh.
The dark opticality of Zoe Pettijohn Shade reflects her interest in both optical art and antique wallpaper. In her small gouache studies, she fuses the pattern making of these disparate practices into a deeply personal form of abstraction in which shadowy colors and dim lines churn together to slowly reveal forms of an aqueous nature.
 Photos by Peter Dudek
an exhibit by local artists focusing on handmade works. Top, Catherine Delphia's 'Muscular Anatomy P. Poliocephalis' |
Dan Mahoney claims that he does not make his own drawings: a la Sol Lewitt, they are drawn by assistants. Which is remarkable because the complexity of the mark making seems to defy the mapping out or instructional mode of Lewitt. Mahoney has a large raw and loosely marked drawing and a small tightly geometric one. Although they don't seem to be by the same person (or rather drawn by the same hand) they do share the same intensity that one gets from a casual conversation with this artist (as I recently discovered).
John Lawson's colorful collages are made from drawings that he was able to salvage after Hurricane Katrina flooded his studio. This former New Orleans resident now lives in South County and is displaying two examples from this recent body of work in which he pasted scraps or fragments of drawings onto a canvas and then covered them - sealed them - in wax. They have become time capsules, locking the history of his time as an artist into each piece.
Paul Graubard has shown his work widely and is an artist who is often put in the self-taught, outsider category, although he has often asked "outside of what?" And the quirky figurative drawings in this show stand out as usual.
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"Hand Drawn"
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Storefront Artist Project
Through Oct. 12.
Hours: Saturday & Sunday, noon-5
124 Fenn St.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
413-442-7201
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Like much so-called "self-taught," art these drawings are crudely formal with an awkwardly strong sense of composition with an absurdist narrative slant. One is a portrait of Benny Goodman; the other is of a klezmer band, all outfitted in Hasidic garb.
Of course, questioning what a drawing is is part and parcel of this show.
And Leslie Alfin's constructed drawing does just that. Plastic, thread and bits of paper are sandwiched in a translucent sheet that hangs in the middle of the space catching ambient light and allowing the visitor a 360-degree view. This luminous slab is mostly monochromatic with off-color details that can be seen only upon close inspection, though these details are puzzling and primarily serve to maintain the ambiguous nature of the object and its relation to drawing.
The artists gathered here are painters, sculptors and printmakers, and throughout the show one senses that drawing is an active and vibrant part of their varying practices. Divergent in content and execution the drawings in this exhibition nonetheless hold together as a contemporary effort to articulate the importance of the hand, of one's touch, in art making today, even as technology continues to play a larger and active role in the production of art.
Storefront's fall schedule:
Drawings by Tattoo Artists
Oct. 18-26
Reception, Oct. 18, 6-8 p.m.
Kathleen Baldwin Memorial Exhibition
Nov. 1 – 16
A memorial exhibition for the artist who was active in the Berkshire art scene, especially in Pittsfield in the 1980s and '90s.
12x12 on 12/12 Benefit Raffle
Nov. 29-Dec. 12
All art works are 12 inches by 12 inches
Tickets: $25. Each ticket is guaranteed an artwork.
Reception is Nov. 29, 6-8 p.m.; raffle, Dec. 12, 6-8 p/m. |
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