NEW YORK, NY.- Garvey|Simon announces Metalpoint Now!, an exhibition of contemporary artists whose current work features silverpoint and other metalpoint techniques.
Artists: Robyn Ellenbogen, Jonathan Hammer, Marietta Hoferer, Michael Kukla, Cynthia Lin, Tom Mazzullo, Michael Nichols, Susan Schwalb, Scherer & Ouporov
Expanding on the scope of the history-making metalpoint exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, DC (Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns, May 3 – July 26, 2015), Metalpoint Now! highlights contemporary artists who are using metalpoint in their work today as a regular part of their artistic practice, not as an experimental or occasional variance. Metalpoint Now! is composed of works by eight artists and one artist-collaborative duo. The artists work in a variety of unique and innovative ways; some incorporating a more traditional figurative approach, while others are combining metalpoint with other media to produce striking and unexpected results.
Metalpoint is a writing and drawing technique that has been in use since the Middle Ages. Traditionally, a small metal wire is used to make precise marks on a prepared surface or paper. The ‘points’ can be of varied types of metal: from silver to gold, to copper or tin. Silverpoint is the best known and most often used.
Metalpoint, which flourished during the High Renaissance until replaced by graphite in the late sixteenth century, traditionally created clearly defined lines and minute details that demonstrated exceptional permanence, being nearly impossible to erase. The initial marks of metal appear grey, but when exposed to air the metals oxidize and tarnish to varying degrees, adding an element of time and chance to the medium.
Simultaneously exhibited with Metalpoint Now! are two other group shows that feature some of the same artists’ metalpoint drawings: Musing Metallic, (June 3 – July 11), The Curator Gallery, 520 West 23rd Street, New York, also curated by Elizabeth Garvey; and Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns, (May 3 – July 26, 2015), NationalGallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Susan Schwalb has championed metalpoint in contemporary art-making since she discovered the medium in 1975. Schwalb celebrates beauty and harmony in clean, straight lines drawn over prepared surfaces of various hues. Her lines might be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal; there may be a series in parallel, perhaps interrupted by rhythmic intersecting lines. The lines vary in color and tone as Schwalb works with numerous metals: silver, gold, brass, aluminum, bronze, copper, pewter, tin. She composes her line not only with the tip of a metal wire, but by also using bars of metal in sweeping gestures and with other innovative uses of the medium.
Marietta Hoferer builds drawings of strapping tape and silverpoint on paper. Hoferer works with different brands of fibrous tape, each with its own characteristics of color, transparency, and reflectivity. She cuts the tape into pieces by sight, arranging the fragments into patterns over a faintly drawn grid. The tape is not of archival quality, and its gradually changing color and reflectiveness is a study in the ephemerality of material. The metalpoint lines build a crosshatching pattern with the striped patterns inherent in the adhesive.
Michael Kukla creates worlds of organic cellular forms in metalpoint over gesso on paper. Kukla is interested in tortuous spatial relationships created in his work. Drawing over both white and black gesso, strange dimensions seem to close in and open up on the viewer. His silverpoint drawings relate closely to his carved sculpture of stone, wood, and man-made materials.
Tom Mazzullo’s still-life seed drawings are unconventional in their theme and execution. Unplanned, contemplative, and complex in their possibilities, they are inspired by botany, subatomic phenomena, and images of deep space. Each drawing is made up of thousands of seeds, arranged in almost random patterns to form a field of activity. In some cases the patterns are not so random. These metalpoint works are done in silver, copper and goldpoint; the variation in oxidation adding a subtle shimmer of color to the drawings.
Michael Nichols composes diffuse portraits in silverpoint on paper, and in airbrushed buon fresco on ceramic tile. In his silverpoint works, Nichols draws onto a thin surface of clear gesso that allows the texture of the paper show through. Sometimes the portrait is little more than a haze. The drawings are imbued with psychological tension, as they seem to hover like ghostly mug shots over their surfaces.
Cynthia Lin draws actual-size lint, dust, and hair in silverpoint on paper with a gesso surface. Her work engages the viewer in a comic and uncomfortable tension between instinct and intellect. The viewer is inclined to blow or brush away the irritating sheddings, and after a moment realizes they are mere illusion. An unwelcomed encounter with uncleanliness is lengthened and enriched through engaging details that intensify conflicting responses of curiosity and revulsion. A sense of peace may emerge in the contemplation of material gathered or settled over time.
Scherer & Ouporov, Suzanne Scherer (American) and Pavel Ouporov (Russian) collaborate in new media, as well as traditional media such as metalpoint and burnished metal leaf. Their work explores fairytale and myth, dream and reality. In Prima (2013), Scherer & Ouporov have rendered in silverpoint a young ballerina framed by a tondo-form panel support. The young beauty wears a tutu and her head is crowned with a tiara. She gazes directly at the viewer, not to seduce or manipulate; but demonstrating poise even as a cat’s cradle, in gold leaf between her hands, fails to come together.
Robyn Ellenbogen works in mixed media including metalpoint and egg tempera. She achieved a personal artistic breakthrough when she began utilizing metal pads to “paint” in metalpoint. Her works are highly gestural, often with a continuous, contemplative circular motion. The gesso surface might appear as smoke, a series of flower petals, or simple swirls. Ellenbogen is a Zen Buddhist and she does Zen healing work with cancer patients. The tondo form of her panels suggests that the viewer is looking through a microscope to see the artist’s ontological state in metalpoint patterns with added splashes of colored tempera.
Jonathan Hammer creates endearing portraits of botanical subjects given the personality expected in people. Drawing branches in metalpoint and colored pencil, Hammer captures the combination of knots and knobs that make each twisty twig unique. Trained as a bookbinder and leather craftsman, Hammer discovered metalpoint in 1989 when he began experimenting with precious metals to tool text onto leather. Soon he transitioned to silverpoint on gesso with a paper support, and was making his botanical portraits by the early 2000s.
