THINKING THROUGH DRAWING: PRACTICE INTO KNOWLEDGE 13
Thinking Through Drawing: An Exhibition
Macy Art Gallery
October 24 – November 3, 2011
Curated by Andrea Kantrowitz
The artists, in the exhibition accompanying the
symposium on drawing, think through the drawing
process in many different ways. For example, Tara
Geer begins in a flurry of (almost) chaotic activity,
drawing, rubbing out and redrawing, with graphite,
chalk, and charcoal, until that nameless thing that
she is looking for begins to emerge in the paper.
In contrast, William Holton starts out with a few
simple rules for himself, and through repetition,
the traces of a multitude of similar marks evolve
into complex and mysterious structures. Drawing
directly on the wall, Margaret Neill transmits her
perceptions and impressions of the gallery space in
which she finds herself as she draws.
Rather than starting with a clearly defined pre-
conception of what the final product will look like,
all the artists in this exhibition ask “what if?” know-
ing how to draw themselves into an unpredictable
situation through repeated acts of making their
mark. Through this process, they surprise them-
selves and us, exploring unforeseen possibilities
and unexpected connections. Jane Fine and James
Esber execerbate this unpredictability by trading
their drawing back and forth, creating the work of
a fictional alter-ego, J. Fiber. The urge to discover
something new, something unanticipated, is often
the reason to draw in the first place and may be part
of what it means to truly “know how” to draw.
Cognitive psychology and neuroscience shed
light on how, why, and what we know. Recent
neuroscientific research, by Antonio Damasio at
UCSD and others, demonstrates the close relation-
ship between feeling and thought, and has shown
us how our emotions have evolved to guide us, so
that we can “feel our way” through the world. Oth-
ers are showing us how gesture, those ill-defined
yet surprisingly essential hand movements that
accompany speech, help us navigate through con-
cepts and understandings not yet completely within
our grasp. Drawing, as the visible trace of gesture,
allows us to see this process, and follow along the
artist’s journey.Curatorial Statement
Andrea Kantrowitz
Teachers College, Columbia University
To make a mark or trace a single line upon a surface immediately transforms that surface, energizes
its neutrality; the graphic imposition turns the actual flatness of the ground into virtual space,
translates its material reality into the fiction of imagination.
— David Rosand, Drawing Acts