Desire Lines
Why do we draw? What compels us to make a mark? As children, we draw before we read and write. As adults, even those of us who “don’t do art” find ourselves doodling in margins and on the backs of envelopes. In many ways, drawing feels like an elemental part of being human.
Desire Lines brings together six artists who use drawing as a key part, if not the sole focus, of their artistic practice. For these artists, drawing acts as a starting point and a landing place, a way to engage with the immediate present and to understand and interpret the world around and within us.
The works in the exhibit range from formal abstraction to detailed representation. They exist in a variety of media: graphite, watercolor, crayon, ink and ink wash, collage, acrylic, and charcoal. While paper is the most traditional surface for drawing—some would say it’s essential—this exhibit includes canvas and installation as well. All the works access the unique energy that comes from making something by hand.
Line is the foundational element in the drawings of James Siena and Dana Piazza. Siena’s twisting and interlocking forms call to mind organic growth patterns or loosely woven cloth. The undulating skeins animate the surface, drawing our attention to both pattern and texture. Siena’s lines vary tremendously in character and expressive potential.
Piazza creates volume with a series of two-dimensional lines. Each of his jewel-toned, shield-like shapes floats atop a stark white ground. At first glance, the work is coolly mechanistic; close examination reveals the skill, precision, and deft touch of the artist’s hand.
Tara Geer makes big, muscular drawings that deploy a range of techniques. Her mark making ranges from delicate shading floating atop the surface to powerful strokes biting into or burnishing the paper to subtractive marks made by erasure.
Nandini Chirimar renders her mother’s saris and accessories with a delicate touch. These touchstone objects are drawn with exquisite precision and great tenderness. The textiles of India are often luxurious and highly embellished, and Chirimar heightens her drawings’ fidelity to the originals with hints of pigment ground from precious ores.
Maggie Nowinski and Alex Callender blur the line between painting, drawing, and sculpture in ways that are fresh and dynamic yet firmly rooted in drawing. Drawing is process art: a series of thoughts, explorations, and choices the artist engages in to make the artwork. Nowinski’s intricate accumulations reference bits and pieces of nature—feather, seed-pod, claw, blossom. Her lively combinations are at once newly formed creatures and fantastical doodles writ large. Working in black-and-white paint on both flat and shaped canvases, her installations are three-dimensional drawings overtaking space.
Callender’s installation is an uncovering and correction of the hidden history of housing evictions in the name of urban renewal in New Haven, Connecticut. The story unfolds in a living room dotted with family photographs, drawn with nuanced precision. Callender starts with research before turning to her drawing materials—in this case, graphite and black paper—which, while sometimes difficult to decipher, slowly reveal their character and power.
For these six artists, drawing is thinking made visible, a window into their minds. Nandini Chirimar preserves memory by using drawing as an archival process. James Siena creates systems of repetition and variation. They all draw to explore, reflect, and communicate with their physical and interior worlds. As Tara Geer says, “I draw what I see but cannot explain.”
— Sarah Freeman and Mara Williams, co-curators
RELATED AUDIO
Alex Callender
Nandini Chirimar
Maggie Nowinski
Dana Piazza
James Siena
Tara Geer
RELATED EVENTS
October 26, Saturday, 5 p.m. — Opening of Four New Exhibits
December 15, Sunday, 1 p.m. — Exhibit Tour: Desire Lines
January 18, Saturday, 2-4 p.m. — Workshop: Drawing From Your Senses
SELECTED PRESS
‘Desire Lines’ Explores Drawing with Six Diverse Artists — Seven Days (1/8/25)
RELATED RESOURCES
Installation views
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