Joan Sherman
My current drawings have their roots in sources as diverse as 17th century still life paintings and 20th century photography. The drawings are large-scale, but are drawn in great detail, using a jeweler’s magnifying lens. This is a very slow process, like carving forms, in which the images gradually emerge from the work surface. They are meant to be experienced from afar, as most large pieces, but also up close, never loosing the intimacy and subtlety of smaller work.
The drawings are done in charcoal, graphite and pastel. The reference to black and white photography deliberately leaves subtle the traces of the human hand and asserts its place in artistic endeavor. Prints of the drawings expand their vocabulary by adding a layer of color or exploring a different surface. Light Drawings are prints on plexiglass, mounted on light boxes, so that the drawings have a warm glow. Hand-colored prints superimpose a wash of color on selected objects, adding a jarring air of unreality to an otherwise precisely realistic work. Each is its own unique discovery of the different ways in which an image is influenced by its execution and offers different iterations of a concept.