The Untangling
here is the deepest secret (after e.e. cummings)
The Immateriality of the Material World
Sharon Kagan
Artist Statement
On first sight, my drawings appear to be photographs. From a distance, the work is ambiguous suggesting the body, weather systems, or patterns of organic growth. When the viewer gets up close to a piece, it becomes completely abstract, a sea of small shapes.
The drawings begin with a digital photograph of intricate details of fibrous forms that are knitted by the artist in hemp string or rope. Shooting in low light results in out-of-focus photographs; enlarging the images exaggerates their blurriness. Using a Rapidograph pen, the pixelated shapes that emerge from the enlargement and printing of the photograph are then outlined in ink. One of the intentions of this work is to reveal the unreliability of photographic images in mediating our perception.
The paintings begin with a small section of a larger drawing, which is enlarged, printed, and then gridded. By working with color and the grid, patterns within patterns emerge, with a faceted, jewel-like effect. The goal is to make the eyes dance.
The drawings and paintings are an exploration in demonstrating the immateriality of the material world. The act of drawing around the pixilated shapes begins to make the forms appear to shimmer, breaking down the larger forms into smaller moving parts. In the paintings, the grid helps to break them down further into facets.
The work is concerned with making tangible the knowledge of physicists and mystics, that all matter is composed of rapidly moving energy. Nothing is solid and nothing is separate. Everything is vibrating.
The black and white drawings are epic and theatrical, suggesting a mythological domain. Color takes the work in a different direction, as though the viewer has come to the other side of an inner journey. Color changes everything, allowing the work to become evocative and poetic.
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