This week, Zavitz Gallery features Drawing 1 / Anal-Abs, an exhibition of works by students in both sections of SART*2090. It opened on Nov. 10 and runs until Nov. 14. I wandered through the gallery with Jordan Walters, a first-year Studio Art major, talking about the work. Since the show was still being installed during our early morning visit, we also spoke to one of the artists involved, Jaimie Aitken. This is a selection from our conversation:
Will: So this is “analytical abstraction.” These ones on the back wall seem particularly calculated because they’re not made by hand.
Jordan: And they almost read like a math problem. They’re almost like optical illusions.
Will: There are two different classes, one of them being this computer-driven class and the other one…
Jordan: They’re working with a more traditional, analog form of drawing. With compositions so simple, where there’s only about six or seven fluid marks on the page, you have to be very analytical about what you add in and take away. You make one fluid mark, and you don’t know how it’s going to turn out, and then you watch it, and then you respond. It’s like constructing a melody.
Will: A sort of ongoing improvisation.
Jordan: This is not something that just pops out. What are you trying to do? Are you building a structure? Are you creating a space, a movement, a tension?
Jaimie: I’m trying to play with a lot of different elements. It was really fun to play around with the mylar. It was really fun to see how the materials I used reacted with the paper.
Jordan: It’s almost like a jazz piece. It’s all just spiralling about as you’re trying to read it.
Jaimie: I definitely went for a lot of movement, different lines that drag your eye across the page.
Will: What’s the point of this kind of art?
Jordan: For some people, it might be that drawing is sufficient in itself, just like instrumental music. For others, though, drawing is really a language and a process of seeing the world in a different way. The people who are willing to read the language and stand in front of the piece and just receive what it says…
Will: Are there any that strike you as particularly bad?
Jordan: There are a few that I wouldn’t necessarily want to hang in my home, but I tend to be more for those subtle points of tension, and I like to keep a composition very minimal, so some of the ones that seem a little convoluted, I’m not that into. It’s personal preference and taste. But I haven’t had enough time to look at them all.