Follow the Line
March 6- April 11, 2021
Featured ARTISTS : Joe Mangrum, Ellen Weider, Kathleen Vance, Erika DeVries, Phil Rabovsky, Jicky Schnee, Helen Prior, Stacy Seiler, Stefan Saffer, Kristen Schiele, Rachel Urkowitz, Rodger Stevens, Maeve McCool and others.
“ The truth is that I have lived on an even keel. I don’t go down, and I don’t go up. I believe in living above the line. ....And I don’t go down below the line for anything.” Agnes Martin quote from “ Between the Lines”
“Follow the Line" explores a wide field of artistic use and reflection about the line. A line has length, width, tone, and texture. It may divide space, define a form, describe contour, or suggest direction. You can find a line in every type of art. From line art drawings to the most abstract painting line is used as a foundation. The line can control a viewer's eye, describe edges, indicate form as well as movement, value and a light source in drawing. In terms of art, line is considered to be a moving dot. It has an endless number of uses in the creation of art suggest shape, pattern, form, structure, growth, depth, distance, rhythm, movement and a range of emotions. Lines can be moving in video animation, or reflect the complex world of something so simple, stringing together images, gestures or thoughts.
Drawing is just an intuitive process in art, directly from the thought through to the hand. Often times there is a more spontaneity in drawing for artists the idea of chance. For example the ephemeral sand painting of Joe Mangrum are site specific reflecting the moment of making, through the palm of my hand to releasing the sand is a mediative process that follows the line of movement. The simple gestural stroke on Phil Rabovsky's oil on canvas works communicate depth in an everyday moment. Maeve McCool detailed drawings on reclaimed linens recall something intimate in the rural decay considered with memory and regrowth. Rodger Steven’s, wire sculptures are articulations of abstracted composition tell story narratives with the line, like a language of glyphs.
The line inspired almost every artist and its complex meanings are infinitive. The illuminated neon handwritten texts of Erika DeVries are uplifting open ended string of words to offered to the viewer to interpret. Stacy Seiler captures lost elements of the industrial landscape in hand cut paper collage layered between plexi. Kathleen Vance brings nature inside with her flowing ecosystem sculpture that reflects the the creek outside and her created world. Jicky Schnee's sliced and stitched oil paintings use line to cut and mend feelings and memories. The curiousity of where a line brings us, is endless, so much of what we know in our constructed modern world starts with a line.
