Sweet Floods to Run, 11x14”, digital photo composite, 2022
Doorway into Thanks is a group of digital and physical abstract drawings shown in Insurance Gallery at GCADD. Meditative in its repetitive marks, this body of work seeks comfort in the labor and joy of making and offers gratitude to the medium of drawing. Color and pattern invite viewers to rest and slow their thoughts for a while.
Digital images are flattened into pattern and form, resulting in something more like drawing or painting than photography. Screen-based and traditional media exist together symbiotically and inform each other. The distance between these disparate methods is collapsed and explored through formalism.
This exhibition takes its title from the Mary Oliver poem “Praying”.
The process of these drawings is an attempt to patch a few [things] together and enjoy the act of making marks, digitally or physically.
Buzzquilt 2, 11x14”, digital photo composite, 2022
“It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t a
contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”
Mary Oliver, Praying, 2006
Something Like a Good Armchair, Joy is not a Crumb 1 and 2, and Doorway into Thanks, colored pencil on handmade paper, sizes variable, 2022
All photos by Emily Mueller