as if it was a lover…

Posted on by miriam louisa simons

 

Amanda Robins: Dyad 2

Amanda Robins: Dyad 2, 2009
pencil on Arches watercolor paper, 115 x 95 cm

 

I examine the object as if it was a lover, a book, a document.  It is willing to offer everything to me, passively.  I am moving closer to the object, as close as I can, and it covers me benignly.  Warming me to the world of things.

I layer the pencil marks over one another in light strokes, building up the tones carefully.  Light glints softly off the graphite surface.  The paper colours and imprints like asphalt, a well-worn pavement with pockmarks and incisions.  The paper stump forces the graphite into the craters and valleys of the paper – sliding over the surface – burnishing, embossing.  I am entranced by this silvery surface – the powder creates a film, grey and silver clouds forming, the lines of pencil changing and perfecting them.  Away from the amorphous, I push the image into my favoured safety net … [t]his is the boundary, the structure which allows me to feel held and absorbed, contained and subsumed.

– Amanda Robins

SECOND/SKINS Exhibition Catalogue
www.amandarobins.com.au

Amanda Robins at the artisans’ gallery

meditative process made visible

slow art

finding a truth for one’s work

Posted on by miriam louisa simons

 

Artwork by Channa Horwitz

 

I came to do what I do
by giving up all that I was trained to do.
Life drawing, easel painting, abstraction etc.

I chose to use the least number of choices
and have a reason for any choice I made.

I was searching for a truth for my work.

I did not want to be influenced by any one else.

So, closely following my nose
and asking questions of my last work
I came to do my next work.
The phrase I asked was,
“What would happen if I…?”

That simple question lead me down a strange path
and to a body of very personal work.

– Channa Horwitz

 

channa horwitz at the artisans’ gallery