Drawings

These drawings consist of two layers of paper. The front layer is a book page from which I have cut out the people and/or animals. The back layer is drawing paper on which I have painted the landscape that I imagine would have existed behind those people and/or animals.
As with most of my work over the past decade, these drawings explore the presence of absence. In removing the living objects, I do not negate their existance, but rather investigate the effect that they have had on their surroundings. The new landscapes become a dual narrative, simultaneously telling the story of what is missing and what is newly present.

Drawings

A poem by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

-Mark Strand