Artist Bio #1. Dragana Crnjak
The artist keeps materials to a minimum. This provides the potential for each medium to be fully present. The softness and imperfections of the charcoal provide a tension between organic loose and geometric controlled images. This body of work was displayed in a long single line at eye level to present a cinematic quality as the viewer moves through each piece building up memories from the patterns. The fragments build different narratives for each viewer.
Painting chosen for analysis:
Charcoal, pastel on paper
42″ x 42″
2007
we see a large 42 inch white square. Materials used were charcoal and pastel on white paper. Across the top one third of the painting are dark, irregularly shaped black blocks. They arc downward in a circular sweep that continues down the right hand side of the drawing. There are a few other random block shapes placed across the field. The whole one third of the bottom of this piece is white. All the black shapes have a soft charcoal smudge to them. As if a heavy arm rubbed the painting from top to bottom and created a smudge. The placement of the dark shaped suggest a pattern or foundation.
This work immediately evoked a memory of Stonehenge for me. The way the forms lay on the landscape. Stonehenge is part of my english heritage, and ingrained in my DNA.
Citations
WWW.DRAGANACRNJAK.COM
Artist Bio #2. Susan Damato
This American artist is interested in the visual and conceptual relationships between the body and universal forms. Her series of Net drawings weave individual palm lines into configurations referencing biological and cosmological structures. Each palm has unique lines. Palms can be read to reveal the future and the past. By layering them together, each becomes part of the whole that is evolving.
Painting chosen for analysis:
Graphite on mylar
18 x 24
This drawing measures 18 inches high, and 24inches in length. Materials used are graphite on white mylar. A bunch of radiating black lines in different thickness and pressure move out in a net like pattern from the centre. There are three main branches to this image coming from the center in a Y formation. Where they intersect each other, they form a net like structure. Weaving into each other as they radiate outwards. The lines branch off like fine lines on a leaf, or perhaps blood vessels and capillaries.. Towards the end of each of the three branching forms, the lines become longer and thinner, almost questioning the air. As if they are searching or seeking out into the world they are moving into.
When I saw these net drawings, they first made me think of energy flows . How things have their own “net” of energy that casts out in the world to co-mingle with other energies. As I was already thinking about the Stonehenge Monument, they made me think about the energy and Ley lines that exist around the stones. I later learned that these net drawings were in fact lines from her family members palms linked together through experiences. My mind exploded to think about my own net map drawing involving my last visit to Stonehenge with my husband and son. How our palm prints would look entwined.
Citations
www.panda-piano-t3yh.squarespace.com
www.vpa.syr.edu/people/susan-damato/