NYAB Event - Alex Kanevsky "Some Drawings"

Alex Kanevsky "Some Drawings"

J. Cacciola Gallery

This event has ended.

Some Thoughts on Drawing – Alex Kanevsky

Drawing. The most abstract and at the same time the most direct of all art forms. An image on a piece of paper does not exist. It is an illusion. The line that a pencil leaves behind bears no resemblance to the reality. In life there are no lines. The images are created by drawing infinitely narrow negative spaces between objects.

This willfully minimal approach does not so much describe the situation as it implies and triggers. It requires that a viewer complete the picture - an ultimate act of cagey generosity because after the viewer takes over he or she drives wherever they want, bringing a drawing to apparently their own conclusions. Yet a drawing somehow manages to conclude that journey exactly where it wants to be in the viewer’s mind. It never aimed to describe the situation in detail. All it wanted to do was to subtly but irreparably alter the viewer’s view of the world to that which would allow all the implied liberties to lodge themselves comfortably amongst the mundane facts of life.

Looking at a good drawing is like talking to a completely insane person, who nevertheless says some beautiful and profound things. Naturally I wanted to try that myself. After not drawing for a good 15 years (why draw when you can paint?) I wanted to try again fresh. A model came to the studio and we attempted a pencil drawing on the back of some big old watercolor that was around. I was out of practice in trying to express volumes with lines. In fact it seemed like a rather bizarre idea.

Things were rough for a while. I couldn't find one shoulder, and since I did not have an eraser in the studio, I had to re-draw it over and over. Eventually, it was in the right place, along with the collection of the wrong lines surrounding the good one. Later, as I looked at it, I realized that the search for that right line, or rather the agglomeration of the wrong lines, implying the existence of the right line somewhere among them, was the most compelling thing about that drawing. Drawing turned out to be an irresistible mix of self-absorption and self-disclosure. That observation defined the course of what went on in my studio twice a week for the past two years.

Alex Kanevsky, 2012