NYAB Event - Olive Ayhens "New York Drawings"

Olive Ayhens "New York Drawings"

Adam Baumgold Gallery (60 E 66th St.)

This event has ended.

Adam Baumgold Gallery presents an exhibition of pen and ink and watercolor drawings by
Olive Ayhens. Working on location, Ayhens draws the urban center of New York City, capturing its
skyscrapers in a style that is personal, anecdotal, and temporal. She records the life of the city as it
takes place, working simultaneously in a fine ink line and layered areas of watercolor. Included in
the exhibition are views showing the September 11 Monument in the process of construction- these
two drawings show different phases of the process of building the memorial. Ayhen's highly detailed
works invite the viewer to occupy the sublime heights of the cityscape.

Ayhens began drawing New York from above as a recipient of the World Views residency,
which granted artists studio space in the former World Trade Center. Part of her practice includes
working inside high rise buildings for the unique perspectives each provides. A Wall Street office
building afforded her a view of the location of her former studio, now the construction site of the 9-11
Memorial. Ayhens' drawing "Wall Street Facing West," 2011 brings the project full circle and
encloses a feeling of impermanence in the series as a whole. The city, in her work, suggests a
contrast between the utopian ideal of building projects and the disorder and often harsh realities on
the ground. Beyond this, it is a man made landscape that reflects color and light. The tilting arcs of
buildings mimic the path of light to the eye. "Ayhens' paintings convey permanent truths about
nature and the tenuousness of human existence that resonate regardless of ones' politics. " While
her primary concern is the sensory qualities of paint, layer, texture, Ayhens' work is a prism that
reflects a complex and rapidly changing world.

Ayhens' watercolor "Lower Manhattan," 2011 is a field of towering organic forms in the
process of growth and decay. The scene is animated by the natural world in which it sits; buildings
seem to turn in the wind. The interwoven rhythms of blocks of transparent color create a living
fabric. Ayhens describes her process of looking at the city from above as if viewing a growing
organism through a microscope.

[Image: Olive Ayhens "Lower Manhattan" (2011) watercolor and ink on paper 12.5 x 18.5 in.]