In the March 17th New York Times art section, there was a small article by Ken Johnson, about a show at the American Folk Art Museum called "Obsessive Drawing", which closed on March 19th. The article featured an image of a piece of work from the show by the artist Eugene Andolsek, which was amazing. Apparently, Mr Andolsek would come home each night from work and draw and draw to relieve his anxiety and persistant fear that he was going to be fired from his job as an office worker. He did not think of his work as art, but fortunately did save the many hundred meticulousy rendered, beautiful drawings he had created over the years. Thank goodness for us.
I love the density of the linework, use of color and profound crafting of his pieces. There is a hypnotic, seductive quality to the few pieces I've seen. And I want to see more. Though they are frentic and worried, I can also imagine that doing them was a calming, contemplative process and once done, the work itself was such a testament to being alive and having a bit of control in life. These feel like theraputic doodles taken to a high art form.
In a past life, I was a textile designer and something about these pieces also reminds me of an intense, unprintable textile design. Like any good croquis, these feel like they were punched out of a larger piece of unending pattern. Man I love these!
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