Lens/Gravity
Gravity 2003 Materials: charcoal, salt on paper Dimensions: 22″X60″ These pieces continue the exploration of darkness. I worked on the floor and used gravity, literally, in making the pieces. Starting with white paper, I embedded it with about 8 different kinds of charcoal powder. The image we see depends on the density, grit, and content of each charcoal. Pushing the charcoal around in the form of the moon, I felt that the subtext was about the tides and the influence of the moon upon the tides. In our bodies we are mostly ocean; what are we able to perceive in relation to the moon? Gravity lends a different quality to light. Lens 2003 Materials: pastel on paper Dimensions: 22″X60″ After a trip to Mexico I put the charcoal aside and began working with color. There are ruins in Mexico of old aqueducts, which are built upon Roman arches. This structure is stable (lasting hundreds of years), and yet magical. As I began to draw, the arches simplified to a single arc. They became the flip side of Gravity, its mirror image in form and color. In Gravity, the context is darkness, and the arc describes mass and its inherent gravity. In Lens, we see a world of color, and the archway is a window through which we perceive the world. This reflected the experience of being in Mexico and looking at the world through a different cultural lens.