Creighton Michael: Plane Drawing November 25, 2008 – January 9, 2009
The Martin Art Gallery in the Baker Center for the Arts at Muhlenberg College presents, Creighton Michael: Plane Drawing, November 25, 2008 – January 9, 2009.Friday, November 21, 2008 11:22 AM
An opening reception for the artist will be held in the Martin Art Gallery, Wednesday, December 3, 4:30 – 6:00 p.m. In conjunction with the exhibition, writer Susan Isaacs will present a slide lecture in the Center’s lobby Tuesday, December 2, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Creighton Michael has explored the activity of drawing—the process, immediacy and attention to the basic unit, the mark—throughout his career. He developed RHAPSODY (1998 – 2001) a series of reed-pen and ink drawings that were informed by Vincent van Gogh’s late pen-and-ink drawings. In those drawings van Gogh’s marks can be viewed simultaneously as individual units and collectively as patterns.
RHAPSODY triggered a subsequent body of three-dimensional work—Dimensional Drawing—which includes the series GRID, DIP, TUCK and SQUIGGLE. These series focus either on the drawing process or the residue of that process. GRID translates the repetitive hand function associated with drawing into tangible 3-d units or marks. The “marks” are composed of wire and individually shaped by hand. These units are inserted into predrilled holes in the wall. Their shadows enhance their dimensionality and replicate the movement that occurred during the making of the mark. DIP, TUCK and SQUIGGLE focus on the mark as the incremental product of drawing and explore the mark’s structural capabilities. Made of paper pulp and graphite, these reconstituted-drawing modules are used, one by one, to form a dimensional drawing. Michael’s recent DIP (“drawn in paper”) drawings have moved from the vertical plane of the wall into three-dimensional spaces. TUCK is composed of wooden dowels that are coated with a mixture of paper and charcoal. These mark modules are placed at the discretion of the exhibition installer, allowing for increasingly random choices. SQUIGGLE modules are made of various lengths and widths of cotton rope and coated with a paper pulp and graphite mixture.
Creighton Michael received his M.A. in art history from Vanderbilt University and a M.F.A. in painting and multimedia from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a recipient of a Pollack Krasner Foundation grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in sculpture and a Golden Foundation for the Arts award in painting. His work is in various public and private collections including of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Brooklyn Museum, High Museum of Art, Atlanta Georgia, and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York. Michael has had numerous solo exhibitions in New York City and throughout the United States as well as in Copenhagen and Montreal. He has been on the faculty at Rhode Island School of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, and a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and a visiting artist at numerous colleges and universities. He lives and works in New York.
The exhibition, related lecture, and artist’s reception are open to the public and free of charge. Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon – 9:00 p.m.; closed during major holidays and semester breaks. For information, contact Kathryn Burke in the Martin Art Gallery office, 484.664.3467.
