Weighing Time (2004)
Interview from Art in Context by Joao Ribas:
Your
current series of work is a collection of large drawings, impossibly
daunting and astonishingly meticulous to produce. How did they come
about, or better yet, how did you brace yourself for all that work?
I started the series Nr.1-Nr.500 in 1997; the ambiguity of this shape
still fascinates me. It’s not geometric, but it’s not organic. It’s
austere yet energetic, with a surface that is impersonal. I let the
form lie heavy on the ground - oversized - massive but fragile. This
shape, which I fill in, is there to draw your eye. I wanted to return
to manual gesture and the beauty of simple shape, maybe even something
like a pure aesthetic statement. After years of 'concept' heavy art
that wants to shock and surprise, I want to create silent contemplation
again, so the important aspect of these drawings is what happens within
the shape, the life inside it and the silent story of it.
Is that the story of your almost maddening effort to fill this monochromatic space? It’s a story of touch, but continuous touch.
The drawings are emphatically handmade in a very slow process: by
drawing with a graphite pencil on paper. I spend about four hours a day
working on each drawing, continuously. I like to challenge the viewer
to consider the monotony involved in this, the repetition, the essence
of time, the rhythm and the endurance.
It must take months and months to finish them?
I go line after line, through many hours, days, weeks, nights and
years, filled with nothing but lines, nothing but time itself. The size
of the drawings increases, which challenges my concentration and
endurance. The next series will consist of four drawings, 28 x 4 feet.
Recently while working on one of these, a memory from my childhood came
to my mind. When I was a child my mother was sick for many days; I
remember sitting at her bedside coloring books day after day. Since she
could not tolerate talking or a lot of movement, I had to keep quiet
and keep myself busy coloring hundreds of these books. I remember my
agony with the large empty spaces and my impatience with
them--something I think I’ve overcome. But I find myself on the floor
in front of a huge empty space on paper still challenging myself.
More interview
Comments