NYAB Event - Judith Braun “Homeostasis”

Judith Braun “Homeostasis”

McKenzie Fine Art

This event has ended.

McKenzie Fine Art presents an exhibition of recent drawings by Judith Braun, including a large work executed directly on the wall. Opening on Sunday, March 20, with a reception for the artist from 6 to 8 p.m., and running through Sunday, April 24, 2016, this will be the artist’s first solo show with the gallery. Concurrent with this exhibition, Braun will have a solo show titled Crazy Bitch at Simuvac Projects in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, also running through April 24th. Both exhibitions will be discussed in the upcoming Artcritical Review Panel at the Brooklyn Public Library, April 12, 2016. New York native Braun has been exhibiting her work internationally since the late 1980s.

Homeostasis refers to systematic stability, and the works in this exhibition are part of Braun’s ongoing series of drawings, Symmetrical Procedures, begun in 2003. Braun’s parameters for these drawings are threefold: abstraction, which allows for freedom in her imagery; symmetry, an underlying principle of mathematics, physics, music, and language that provides equilibrium amidst the chaotic; and the use of carbon media like charcoal and graphite. The artist employs carbon-rich materials not only because of their potential for infinite gradations but also because they derive from a fundamental element in nature.

Braun’s conceptual parameters relate to the physics of emergent systems, a theory which explains how quantity and diversity combine and interact to allow systems to self-organize within the constraints of simple rules. She notes that, “Though my drawings are spare and pristine, I think they are a response to my chaotic, and beloved, urban life, with its endless possibilities and interactions, and may reflect the need to navigate a quiet path within the maelstrom….I’m aiming for clarity as an expression of intention, not of accomplishment.”

Ranging in date from 2004 to the present and organized into several groupings, the works demonstrate the diversity and complexity of Braun’s investigations. The various mark-making strategies in Symmetrical Procedures have evolved over time and respond to one another in a continuous engagement. Some simple and elegant linear drawings use repeated and varied elements similar to themes in a musical composition. In others, lines fragment into particles which spin and vibrate. Another group has mirrored, echoed and repeated motifs that create elaborate and complex compositions. In several drawings the surface of the paper is densely covered with graphite and the absence of marks defines the imagery. One grouping of sixteen drawings investigates a small perceptual puzzle resulting from the single overlap of a simple shape. Also in the exhibition will be a large-scale fingerprint drawing made directly on the wall, part of an ongoing series Braun calls Fingerings. While the composition is schematized in advance, Braun works carefully but spontaneously, with focused attention to the pressure and gesture of her charcoal-dipped fingers.

Media

• Drawing

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