October 2 – November 1, 2014
Neville Gabie
Experiments in Black and White, 2012/13
Video still of performance at Cabot Institute Bristol University
On Big Drawings
Curated by Friedhard Kiekeben
October 2 – November 1, 2014
Reception: October 2, 5-7 PM
Neville Gabie
Charles Mahaffee
Michael K. Paxton
Olivia Petrides
Deb Sokolow
Christine Wallers
Matthew Woodward
A+D
art
+ d es i gn
AVERILL AND BERNARD LEVITON
GALLERY HOURS
A+D GALLERY
TUESDAY–SUNDAY
619 SOUTH WABASH AVENUE
12PM–5PM
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60605
312 369 8687
THURSDAY
COLUM.EDU/ADGALLERY
12PM–7PM
This project is partially funded by a grant from the Illinois Arts
Council Agency and the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.
1
Deb Sokolov
Listen to the Squatter, 2013
From Several Mysteries
Acrylic, graphite, tape, photo collage on paper
17” x 11”
2
Introduction
On Big Drawings brings together artists whose work celebrates the medium of drawing as a contemporary form of expression in a number of ways and with unique approaches. The chosen works are predominantly large-scale, site-specific, and
immersive, challenging traditional notions of what “drawings” are in the contemporary context. Also included are smaller
scale works such as Deb Sokolow’s series of Mysteries, for instance, Listen to the Squatter, shown on the opposite page.
Internationally, works by Julie Mehretu, Kara Walker, William Kentridge, and Julian Opie, or the thickly textured black and
white drawings by Richard Serra, showcase the strong current interest in an expanded–and expansive–notion of the medium
of drawing. Sol LeWitt famously redefined the conventions of drawing, and the purpose of drawing, in his series of Wall
Drawings.
During preliminary research we were looking for artists working in the Chicago area whose graphic work may be
conceptually driven, abstract, three-dimensional, installation-based, or narrative. It seemed important that the selected works
showed notions of “trace,” “marks and signification,” “process,” “mediation,” and “representation” in a way that typifies
the graphic medium as being quite distinct from painting, but would challenge preconceived and traditional ideas of what a
“drawing” is, and what it possibly could be.
The seven artists in this exhibition all made a unique contribution to “expanded drawing,” and their work creates a dialogue
across media boundaries.
Originally we envisaged to also extend the exhibition into public sculpture and outdoor installation (also including works by
Jeff Harms and Daniela Ehemann) but we had to limit the three-dimensional aspect to one indoor drawing/sculpture project,
which will be Christine Wallers new site-specific installation On the Elements of Electricity, a poetic meditation on light, line,
and electricity. The show we curated is now a more classical gallery exhibition, which we believe serves its purpose of “Big
Drawing” equally well and in a beautiful setting.
My personal interest in the medium of drawing re-emerged through a long-standing dialogue with Jennifer Shaw since the
year 2000, and through links between drawing, digitality, and multiplicity (which is my more native creative domain). Between
2008 and 2012 I realized a series of digital wall drawings that were printed in vinyl, immersive and on a large scale, such as
Pillar Wrap, Tumble, and Loop.
These projects made me think of connecting with other artists keen on expanding drawing beyond the sketchbook, and the
idea for On Big Drawings was born. I am very grateful to all the participating artists for their support and enthusiasm; and
this project would not have been possible without the generous support from the Columbia College A+D Gallery who is
hosting this exhibition. Special thanks goes to the gallery director Meg Duguid who added her curatorial genius, to Jennifer
Shaw for writing a poignant and captivating introductory essay, as well as to the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation who
generously supported the production of this publication.
Friedhard Kiekeben,
Chicago, 2014
Friedhard Kiekeben is an artist; he studied at the
Royal College of Art and works as Fine Art faculty
at Columbia College Chicago.
Pillar Wrap, Public Art Commission, Harrison
Gateway, Chicago, 2008
3
Olivia Petrides
Polar Nights (detail), 2014
Ink & gouache on paper
75” x 52”
4
THE ARTISTS
Neville Gabie
Page 12
Michael K. Paxton
Page 16
Deb Sokolow
Page 20
Charles Mahaffee
Page 24
Olivia Petrides
Page 28
Christine Wallers
Page 32
Matthew Woodward
Page 36
5
On Big Drawing
Something has happened to drawing. It has been snatched back from the amateur sketcher and the art school copyist; excused
from the politeness of the drawing room and the perfunctoriness of the drawing board. Used for so long to outline form
in nature – to describe an apple or the musculature of a classical torso – it is no longer just a stage before coloring in. Any
requirement to merely give a perspective line has been waived. Its down-and-out days in the pissed-up subways of the antisocial behaviorist are similarly in question. In the work of the seven artists in this exhibition, drawing appears to have opened
up a new space between the lyrical and the epic. Scaled up to the proportions of Renaissance fresco, Romantic history painting
and Expressionist panorama, it has gone beyond the sketchbook page. Drawing has gone BIG.
Drawings have commonly been the maps from which to understand or relate to what we see in the world. They might be
realistic, architectural or expressive in style; but essentially they have helped us pin something down or represented an
enactment of that very process of refinement.The drawings by these artists are not diagrams or blueprints for something else;
they are all in some way acts in graphite, ink or chalk: the drawing as verb. Each of them, in turn, eschews the traditional notion
of drawing as an ancillary art form pointing to future outcomes in other media. Rather, these artists in their own different ways
foreground drawing as the engine of ideas that are themselves the finished artifact.
Drawing as an act of Penitential Endurance: Neville Gabie
Drawing as an act of Incarceration: Michael K. Paxton
Drawing as an act of Investigation: Deb Sokolow
Drawing as an act of Pseudo Writing: Charles Mahaffee
Drawing as an act of Industry: Olivia Petrides
Drawing as a Three-Dimensional act: Christine Wallers
Drawing as an act of Archaeology: Matthew Woodward
Endurance: Neville Gabie
I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful.
I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful.
I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful.
I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful. I must not be deceitful.
Watching Neville Gabie’s Experiments in Black and White VII – a piece created in video and chalk – engenders the same sense
of schadenfreude to be had from watching the deceitful Sisyphus rolling his boulder endlessly up the hill. Gabie’s drawing task
(akin to the punishment of “doing lines”) is to manhandle an immense rock of chalk across a blackboard of equally immense
proportions. Line by line he draws, or rather hauls, the chalk across the board. Is this what big drawing means: a muscular feat
of strength and determination as much as the dexterity of draughtsmanship? Arduous toil rather than the flourish of pen and
wash? Without doubt, this piece reminds us of the redefinition of drawing that has occurred in recent times.
Although Gabie’s big drawing bears the mark of a man enslaved, it also results in a landscape which is nuanced and delicate in
its accomplishment. The toil of its own execution leaves the piece when the artist, his black suit soiled by the chalk, leaves the
scene.The effect is as of a furrowed field or wind-blown body of water.The problematized satisfaction derived from the choice
of drawing medium is rooted in our knowledge that the blackboard rubber will inevitably wipe it away and Sisyphus will need
to begin again. We are also forced to consider the ephemeral nature of a drawing in a different way; since we know that this
giant chalkface drawing only exists as a record on film. It is process and its associations – the interplay between permanence
and impermanence – that are the point here, not the finished drawing.
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Incarceration: Michael K. Paxton
Whilst Gabie’s act of obedient penitence has a classical proportion and poetry to it, Michael K. Paxton’s big drawings have
the edginess and anger of a man in solitary confinement. Here, drawing has taken place under duress, and seemingly with
whatever basic means were available. Walls and excrement are the materials of the insane asylum or “dirty protests” against
unjust detention, and these works thrash about and rage against the limitations of ordinary drawing. The artist is in fact using
traditional means – wash drawings – but on a life-sized scale and with an attitude very different to the practice of the polite
societies of the 18th and 19th centuries, when Jane Austen heroines whiled away their languorous afternoons with pen and
wash as a means of enriching their social dowry through outward signs of “accomplishment:”
n o one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must
have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing and the modern languages, to deserve the word...
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, (1813)
The “improving” nature of drawing is something that is outmoded today, and yet there remains a strain of this notion in the
idea that a good work ethic in the art of drawing will be the basis of good art. Drawing as the armature for color. Drawing as
a way to understand forms and how they relate. Drawing as a geometric formula with which to create the illusion of depth.
Paxton is not concerned with drawing either as an exercise in etiquette nor as a stage in a training regime. His is rude drawing,
immediate and unconstrained by the courtesy and corsetry of drawing decorum. Although his gestural marks could be termed
sketch-like, the scale of these pieces and the force behind them contradicts the received notion of sketching as a preparatory
act of drawing. To sit and sketch conjures up images of the artist with his sketchbook in quiet experimentation, not lashing
around the walls. Here, the gentility and self-control of tradition is atavistically by-passed and drawing unleashed once more
into primitive form.
Investigation: Deb Sokolow
With the OCD of a crazed fan, Deb Sokolow finds out about people and situations and processes them into oblique narratives
of hand-written captions and hand-drawn vignettes, tables and graphs. Flip chart brainstorming and Post-it Note scraps are the
artist’s source material. Part archive, part forensic investigator’s incident board, these quirky semi/fictional biographies grow to
hundreds of feet in length. Sokolow’s pages are not sewn neatly together in a convenient book form. Paper ephemera is pasted
in long sequences around the walls of the gallery or inserted into museum vitrines as evidential objects or as archaeological
finds excavated from filing cabinet and briefcase.Walking the length of the subject creates a selective relationship to it, different
to information received in a sedentary way. Storyboards are transcribed directly onto the walls and inset with interactive
elements or accommodate existing gallery furnishings, such as light switches, as active choices for the participating reader/
viewer. Like Alice, we follow a corridor-length flow diagram that tells you to “start here,” “press this,” “choose an ending.” The
cartography of call out boxes and the calligraphy contained within creates an experience of visual and literary density. What’s
here implied is that the transient DNA of our temporal identity transfers itself to the very surface of the million things with
which we come into contact each day; and that this can somehow be tracked-down, reconstituted and revivified in artworks
such as these.
Is this act of idiosyncratic social anthropology to be classified as drawing rather than creative documentation? When most
of our words are keyed through computers and phones, the handwritten acquires a novelty and materiality which renders
the artist’s heavy black crossings out and punctuation marks a formal value as much as communicative meaning. The use of
crude capitalization and wonkily ruled lines affirms an individual maker rather than a word-processor. Sokolow’s is a whimsical,
homespun style of “drawing” which has found a cult following for artists like David Shrigley, whose black humor bon mots and
“inept” doodles have a kick because of their disarmingly faux naivety. It also serves to remind us that drawing is continuously
mutable and constantly adapts itself to new forms and emerging technologies, even if that adaption is itself a form of reaction.
7
Writing: Charles Mahaffee
The process of drawing is, before all else, the process of putting the visual intelligence into action, the very
mechanics of visual thought. Unlike painting and sculpture it is the process by which the artist makes clear to
himself, and not to the spectator, what he is doing. It is a soliloquy before it becomes communication.
Michael Ayerton
Drawing is a species of writing. Traditionally it has used the same implements. The artist or author takes up a pen and makes
marks on a sheet of paper – he may produce marks that are formal and called “drawings” or marks that carry meaning and are
called “words. ” Artists like Deb Sokolow position drawings and words together in a presentational art in which the writing
has aesthetic qualities but which is ultimately comprehensible. Charles Mahaffee creates a more fully refined hybrid of the
drawing-writing animal. It looks like drawing but you think you might be able to read it. It looks like writing but you can’t quite
read it. A graphite gray area. Is Mahaffee a calligrapher or a poet, a graffiti artist or protestor, an abstract painter, a scribbler?
In netting characters from the domain of words that are really only the traced shape of characters or mock letters, the work
interrogates itself as to its own status as doodling or pseudo-writing. Or is it simply the self-conscious arrangement of bad
handwriting? The viewer strains, thinks he sees a message in the densely worked strokes for a moment before it morphs back
into an abstract patterning. The forcefulness of Mahaffee’s black marks would suggest more than pattern is intended. The fact
that any clear meaning is not fixed, not overtly stated, gives it an insidious power – a multi-layered possibility of significance
akin to poetry.
Whilst Sokolow’s use of writing is more in the line of graphic novel dialogue boxes giving clear character descriptions and plot
direction, Mahaffee uses the aesthetic of words and characters as the units with which to construct a pattern which may or
may not have direct syntactical meaning. It forces us to consider a more complex relationship between the word as signifier of
meaning and the word as vehicle of form.Word forms corralled together build into a fence-like structure. Perhaps each stroke
is a day spent in a solitary cell, a mark of time scratched into the wall. Or is it a scream for attention made emphatic through
repetition? Mahaffee’s work forces the viewer to oscillate between attempting to understand what the repeated words and
blocks of words are saying and what they look like, apart from any translated meaning. In doing so, he is actually taking drawing
back to one of its earliest traditions with its roots in eastern calligraphy. Just as we can appreciate the beauty of Japanese
calligraphy for its delicate strokes and rhythms of the characters as a block formation, therefore, we can also appreciate the
sloganeering power of Mahaffee’s sign-writing.
A pencil can become a guerrilla weapon – it’s small, cheap, easily transportable, quick to deploy and can have a powerful impact.
In a world of depressed markets, economic decline and reduced horizons, then, drawing retains a DIY-punk vitality and can do
big things in the right or wrong hands.
Industry: Olivia Petrides
人心齐，泰山移 rén xin qí, tài shan yí When people work with one mind, they can even remove Mount Taishan
Chinese Proverb
Through the accumulated bundling of lines and cross-hatching, Petrides takes the possibility of an epic lyrical drawing to
phenomenal proportions. We have seen how the persistence of the artist can transform a blackboard into a lesson in linearity
and how drawing with an expansive energy can generate immense gestural marks. Here it is a demonstration of how techniques
traditionally used on a small scale can be applied, through industry and dexterity, to make something at once minute in
perfection and monumental in impact.
8
The bigness of nature has been a subject deemed worthy of a grand scale treatment in painting since the 18th century when
artists like Thomas Cole and Thomas Moran created monumental canvases of vast tracts of the American wilderness. It was
Cinemascope big screen, big country, before the movies even arrived, and they held the viewer spellbound, continuing to do
so today. The sublime panorama was awe-inspiring but also terrifying in its immensity. An English landscape seldom threatens
its painters and poets like the vast tracts of prairie, the parched canyons, scalding geysers and endless forest ridges of the
unchartered territories. The threat of being lost is inherent in those paintings. But the medium of drawing has seldom been
thought appropriate as the means to the monumental. Paint can cover much more ground with much less effort. It can render
scenes in Technicolor, so why use the single stroke of the pen to build something so big?
As an artist-in-residence at a settlement in the Arctic Circle, Petrides’ aim was to set down on paper both the micro and
macrocosmic essence of the aurora borealis. This was not about showing the generalized effects of nature’s light show from
a distance with the broadness of paint. This was about being inside its suffocating gaseous mass. Each element marked down.
Her drawings intimidate you with the raw power of nature. Great surges of line suck you into a lava flow or make you
disappear into a whiteout. Her elemental landscapes move and breathe and curl around you – at once so big as to make you
lose your bearings in them, and yet at the same time with a detail of line that recalls the individual hairs on a wolf’s back.
The monochrome interplay between ink and paper only serves to heighten the special effects, like the moodiness of an
Ansel Adams photograph in close-up panorama. With its awe-inspiring levels of unique detail and saturated human attention,
Petrides’ work also reminds us of the recent tendency towards privileging drawing’s analogue and organic qualities over the
reproductive ease of digital media.
Three-Dimensional Drawing: Christine Wallers
Wallers’ two-dimensional drawings have a density that is entirely formal. Rich in mark making but essentially delicate and
fugitive in a way that is only possible with graphite, we feel that a moment of form will disappear in an instant – erased and
replaced with another accumulation of marks. In her paper-based series, marks swarm or flock together to produce a powerful
collective body which moves as a single entity, but in which each mark has its own weight and importance.
Over the last few years I have produced a series of dense and tightly knit drawings that emphasize process, structure,
repetition and random patterning. Different values or intensities of graphite line build an ethereal scaffold that can
vibrate as an unsettling mass.
Christine Wallers
But the artist is not constrained by definitions of drawing to the use of graphite, chalk, or charcoal. In her installations she
substitutes the drawn line with threads, filaments and wires. Bundling these together, she creates line in 3D as if transposing the
scaffolding to the physical space of the subject itself; thereby fusing the polarities of object and process.That it is still technically
a drawing and not a sculpture is up for debate. Certainly, such site-specific and performative dimensions to Wallers’ practice
tend to blur boundaries between drawing and plastic arts. The delicacy of the choice of material and its regularity, though,
recall the simplicity and economy of graph paper: a Sol LeWitt in air, a perspective structure for its own beauty, rather than as
the guidelines for the drawing of something else. Wallers generates scale by multiplicity, strength through number and in her
installations, at least, takes on the projective condition of drawing literally.
It retains the linearity (first and foremost) as well as the immediacy and accessibility that characterizes drawing. Like stringing a
giant harp, Wallers delineates space, and physically conducts (rather than implies) the passage of light and the aural resonance
of strummed chords. This is something new for drawing. The parallel fibres don’t simply represent vectors, they function
as actual musical staves, like blank sheet music in space which is activated by the play of light to produce the notes of the
composition. Rulings are translated into something which seeks to draw attention to the space we inhabit. By drawing in 3D,
Wallers can fill an entire room with the singing, oscillating beauty of line.
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Archaeology: Matthew Woodward
So drawing need no longer have manners, but there are other conventions to throw off. Matthew Woodward succeeds in
doing this whilst giving the nod to one of the principal roles for drawing in art schooling – as the medium for copying. Matthew
Woodward shows that big drawing does not have to be big in gesture and emotion, but can exude an antique elegance with the
stuff of dereliction. In his work we have a strangely pleasing mix of the reclamation yard, archaeology and the lair of the serial
killer. It’s as though we have uncovered the delicate remains of a Roman villa wall painting in a seedy downtown warehouse.
Gorgeously ornate architectural features are skillfully rendered on shabby polythene sheets.
The practice of copying classical moldings as a traditional apprenticeship collides with the rebellion of a modern artist
and materials which cannot help but evoke time past and present. What we experience is something akin to discovering a
Villa Farnesina at 25th and 41st. Woodward’s architectural motifs have the richness of the red chalk drawings that many of
the Academy art students used when copying from classical casts and moldings. This isn’t the trompe l’oeil effect that the
Roman frescoist was attempting, rather, he produces something that might once have been complete but which has become
fragmentary over the years. It is as though the drawing presented has a past that has rubbed away at the edges and the artist’s
preoccupation has precisely to do with this rub of the artifact up against the seasons and human contact.
In On Big Drawings then we see seven acts of drawing. Seven approaches in monumental scale. Seven artists testifying to
the vitality, flexibility and relevance of a technique as old as mankind itself, as fresh as a child’s first marks. In the hands of
contemporary practitioners, drawing has been set new tasks – of documentation and description; to carry words and forms
on its back; to work with new technologies. It has not found itself inappropriately used or out of its depth. The doldrums of
drawing are well behind us. No longer the slave of the academies or servant of fine ladies. Perhaps its power of endurance
and reinvention lies simply in its simplicity, in its economy of means, and its multiplicity of purpose.
Jennifer Shaw
Jennifer Shaw
Jennifer Shaw studied History of Art at St Andrews University and has a Masters Degree in Museum & Gallery Studies. She has
worked as a curator and exhibitions coordinator in the UK and USA. Her interest in drawing stems from her early years as an
art student and has persisted in her work with various collections and artists over the last 20 years. During this time she has
been privileged to get a close up look at drawings of all shapes and sizes. She currently lives in Warwickshire, England.
10
Matthew Woodward
Chicago Ave, Lower Portion Study, 2014
Mixed media on paper
44” x 60”
11
Neville Gabie
12
Neville Gabie
Experiments in Black and White, 2012/13
Video stills of performance at Cabot Institute Bristol University
13
Experiments in Black and White VII (chalk) | Experiments in Black and White (liquid chalk)
14
Experiments in Black and White (oil) | Experiments in Black and White, Africa (ice)
Neville Gabie was born in 1959 in Johannesburg, South Africa and holds an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art
in London. He has held residencies across the globe, including Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou, China, and International Art
Space in the remote town of Kellerberrin in western Australia. He has worked on a photographic project with the NGO ‘Right
to Play’ and Art Review magazine in Afghan Refugee camps in Pakistan. Between 2010 and 2012, he was the Olympic Delivery
Authority Artist in Residence at Olympic Park, and in 2012 was given a major commission by the Contemporary Arts Society of
Nottingham, England. His work is included in the Arts Council and Tate Gallery collections.
15
Michael K. Paxton
16
Michael K. Paxton
Riven (installation view), 2012
Chalk, charcoal, gesso on wall
14’ x 19’
Michael K. Paxton in front of Riven
17
Michael K. Paxton
Piney Drawing 2, 2013 Pen and ink wash on drafting film
24” x 36”
Woods 2, 2011
Pen and ink wash on drafting film
24”x 36”
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Red Drawing, 2014
Pen and ink wash on drafting film
25” x 40”
Piney Drawing 2 (detail)
Michael K. Paxton is a sixth generation West Virginian and Chicago based artist. He has a BA in Art from Marshall
University and an MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Georgia. Paxton has recently been awarded a fellowship
by the Jentel Artist Residency Program in Wyoming, an Illinois Arts Council Professional Development Grant, Faculty
Development Grants from Columbia College, Chicago and a Marshall University Alumni Award of Distinction presented by the
Alumni Association in concert with the College of Fine Arts in Huntington, WV. In 2012 he completed an artist-in-residence
with Air le Parc Project and Research Center in Pampelonne, France, he was a Visiting Artist with the School of Art and Design
of Marshall University in Huntington, WV where he created a huge gallery size wall drawing installation Riven, and was included
in the group exhibitions New Country at the Claypool-Young Art Gallery of Morehead State University, KY.
19
Deb Sokolow
20
Deb Sokolow
Dear Trusted Associate, 2009/10
Graphite, charcoal, ink, acrylic on paper and on wall
Approximately 40’ long
21
Several Mysteries, 2013
Suite of 23 drawings
Acrylic, graphite, tape, photo collage on paper
17” x 11”each
(left)
Two Men Suits
(right)
Friendly Stranger
Deb Sokolow is a Chicago-based artist whose text-driven drawings combine research, fiction and humor to speculate
on topics relating to politics, conspiracy theory and human nature. Recent group exhibitions include the 4th Athens
Biennale in Greece, The Drawing Center in New York City, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen in Germany, The Institute
of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and Western Exhibitions in Chicago. Sokolow’s 2013 solo exhibition at the Wadsworth
Atheneum Museum of Art, Some Concerns About the Candidate, was reviewed in The New York Times. Her work has been
reproduced for Creative Time’s recent comics project, for Swedish art magazine, Paletten, and in Vitamin D2, a recently
released survey on contemporary drawing. She is a recipient of a 2012 Artadia award and residencies at Art Omi, Nordic
Artists’ Centre in Norway, and Vermont Studio Center. Sokolow received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago in 2004 and her BFA from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. She is a lecturer in the Department
of Art Theory & Practice at Northwestern University.
22
Deb Sokolow, photo by Britton Bertran
23
Charles Mahaffee
24
Charles Mahaffee
Matter (installation view), 2012
Charcoal drawing
25
Attrition (detail), 2014
Charcoal on paper
Charles Mahaffee was born in 1980 in Decatur, Georgia, has strong ties to Chicago, and currently lives and works in Doha,
Qatar. His conceptually informed art practice encompasses drawing, video, and sound art. He earned both his BFA and MFA
from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has shown his work nationally and abroad in such venues as Lloyd Dobler
Gallery, Hinge Gallery, Julius Caesar Gallery, MDW Fair, the NEXT exhibition at Art Chicago, and the Action Field Kodra Festival
in Thessolaniki, Greece.
26
Charles Mahaffee in his Chicago studio in 2013. Mahaffee
has a strong conceptual background and studied postmodern theory; interestingly; the language aspect is shared by a
number of the artists in On Big Drawings.
Life studies from the artist’s sketchbook, 2013
27
Olivia Petrides
28
Olivia Petrides
Polar Nights (a frieze of six panels), 2014
Ink & gouache on paper
75” x 52” each
29
Olivia Petrides in her Chicago studio, 2013
Olivia Petrides has had numerous exhibits in galleries and museums in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Scotland, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Her works are included in the public collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Park
Service, the Field Museum, the Illinois State Museum, Openlands Preservation Association, and Icelandís Hafnarborg Institute of
Art, among others. She has received numerous grants and artist residencies, among which are a Fulbright Grant, American-Scandinavian Foundation Grants, and an Illinois Arts Council Governor’s Exchange Award. She has been awarded residencies at the
Rekjavik Municipal Museum and the Gil-society in Iceland, the Faroe Islands Museum of Natural History, the Virginia Center for
the Creative Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, Yellowstone National Park, and the Ragdale Foundation. Petrides received her
MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Painting &
Drawing Department and the Visual Communications Department.
30
Polar Nights, panel No 3, 2014
Ink & gouache on paper
75” x 52”
31
Christine Wallers
32
Christine Wallers
Sea Level, 2005
Suyama Space, Seattle, WA
(above)
Sea Level details
33
Study for On the Elements of Electricity, a new site-specific
work made for On Big Drawings, Chicago, 2014
Fine gauge copper wire, punched steel, magnets, paint
86”x 12”
Originally from Chicago, Christine Wallers has lived, exhibited and curated shows in Seattle, New Mexico, France and
Germany. Her work references an interest in natural phenomena, most notably light and water phenomena in the Northwest,
the Southwest and the Midwest. She is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work uses formal procedures of minimal and post-minimal art to craft installations that are site-specific, experientially-based and often fleeting. Within this she attempts to create an
experience of the ephemeral, the just emerging and the barely visible from the interplay between object and space. Time and
its shifts are key to understanding her process. Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, TimeOut Chicago, and featured in
Dwell magazine. In addition, she has been a visiting artist at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX.
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the grey piece, 2014
Sumi ink, graphite, hand cut, on paper
12” x 26”
35
Matthew Woodward
36
Matthew Woodward
Tenth Street 4, 2013
Mixed media on tarp
6’ x 7’
37
Polk Street, 2014
Mixed media on paper
85’ x 101’
Matthew Woodward in his Chicago studio.
Matthew Woodward was born in Rochester New York in 1981. He received his BFA from the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago and his MFA from the New York Academy of Art. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally
at venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center, Indianapolis Art Center, Janine Bean Gallery in Berlin, The Drawing Room
in Budapest, Hungary, and New York Academy of Art. He has been in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Urbanfuse
Residency in Berlin, The Cill Rialaig Project in Ireland, and the South Logan Square Artists Coalition in Chicago. He is an
instructor of Art at Dominican University and has given numerous lectures at schools and colleges throughout the United
States. Currently, Woodward lives and works in Chicago and is represented by Linda Warren Projects.
38
studio impression (preparatory ground)
Tenth Street 4 (detail), 2013
Mixed media on tarp
6’ x 7’
39
Olivia Petrideswww.oliviapetrides.com
Christine Wallerswww.christinewallers.typepad.com
Michael K. Paxtonwww.michaelkpaxton.com
Charles Mahaffeewww.charlesmahaffee.com
Matthew Woodwardwww.mattwoodwardard.com
Deb Sokolowwww.debsokolow.com
Neville Gabiewww.nevillegabie
www.colum.edu/adgallery
www.onbigdrawings.com/
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Christine Wallers
the white piece, 2012
Charcoal, white pencil, powdered graphite, hand cut, on paper
10” x 14”
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