Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Exhibiting Three Desert Landscapes at Art is OK Gallery

 
Chuck Dunbar
will exhibit
three
Big New Mexico Inspired Landscapes
(broiling sun, hot rocks, prickly pear)
at
Art Is … OK & Company Gallery & Sculpture Garden
3301 Menaul NE #28
Albuquerque, NM 87107
505-883-7368
Opening Friday October 5, 2007, 6-9 PM
Show runs to December 31, 2007
 
 
 
Cultivating Flowers in the Desert, 60″ x 40″ (152cm x102cm), acrylic on polyester canvas
 
 
 
 
Desert Rocks Roast in the Sun, 60″ x 40″ (152cm x102cm), acrylic on polyester canvas
 
 
 
 
Prickly Pears Pose Shadows to the Desert, 60″ x 40″ (152cm x102cm), acrylic on polyester canvas

Posted by Chuck at 05:32:16 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Viewer’s Response to Edna’s & Chuck’s Recent Drawings

 

Here’s one viewer’s response to the recently posted landscape drawings.

” - I like the line drawings that you do with Edna. I’m not sure whether I like knowing the motivation behind them or not. The picture of the tent whatevers in New Mexico is interesting, but I almost liked wondering what the shapes were better. Still, neat interplay with thick and thin lines, erasures, white space. Quite interesting. (Comment this)

Written by: Anonymous at 2007/08/09 - 17:13:17″
 
Don’t be shy about commenting folks. Edna and I are interested in your responses to the drawings. I’m also interested in your response to the other work I’ve put up.
 
Edna adds: Although NM and other places have wonderfully improbable landscape features and although lots of landscape elements and shapes must be filed away somewhere in our brains, I am not deliberately putting those marks on the paper. In fact, I try with some diligence to make shapes that I have not really thought of before. Moreover, I hope their placements on the page, relative to a natural landscape, are unusual, ambiguous or amusing. Really what is happening is that one mark suggests another and the relationship between the shapes and lines keeps us engaged and exploring the possibilities of the drawing.”
 
[next day]
 
Chuck confesses:  What’s this?  I’ve been caught being my own apologist, justifying, defending against an accuser, who isn’t even there, yet, getting my pins all in a row, positioning for the jibe not yet come, planning for the imagined onslaught.   My imagined adverse adversary, whose doggerel I imagine will tear the image flesh from the structural bone and then eat the bones leaving nothing but a pool drying saliva, is merciless hunter in my mind and nobody else’s.    The photo of Tent Rocks is an apology.  Tent Rocks exists without the drawings and the drawings exists without Tent Rocks.  I don’t need Tent Rocks to explain the drawings.  Anonymous comes along and says, “Don’t need Tent-Whatever.  I can enjoy the drawings without anybody’s help.”  Edna’s right.  I know that.  That’s why we get along in a drawing or painting.  We make all the drawings one or two marks at a time, each successive mark in response to the marks already on the paper.  There is excitement working this way, without premeditation.  But I am still looking over my shoulder for that killer, hunter, fending off its threatened attacks with the weapons of reasoning.  Yessh!  Will I ever grow up?

 

Posted by Chuck at 17:57:49 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Monday, August 6, 2007

Drawing with Edna

 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), black pastel on Strathmore rag 2 ply Bristol
 
 
 
Tent Rocks, New Mexico
 
 
Edna and I have gotten together to draw three or four times over the last several weeks. These three drawings are from the dozen or so we’ve done since June. We decided to put an horizon line in the drawing. That’s about all that’s needed to evoke a landscape. It’s also one of the first things the visual cortex does - determines edges and then their orientation. Just to let you know we’re not making up any old thing, the photo image is of tent rocks near Cochiti Pueblo about an hour north of Albuquerque. Our drawings are grounded in the natural fantasy of the New Mexico landscape.
Posted by Chuck at 04:15:20 | Permalink | Comments (3)