Selections 18

New works on paper by 12 emerging artists were on view in a lively summer exhibition which opened in 1982 at The Drawing Center. All of the artists in Selections 18 worked on or with paper in a startling variety of techniques, emphasizing the Center's broad definition of drawing. The artists in the exhibition were: Ruth Bauer, Kristi Hager, Jamillah Jennings, Scott Kilgour, Hilda O'Connell, James Randall, Aura Rosenberg, Linda Salerno, Joseph Schactman, Fred Schuback, Bart Thrall, and Bruce Wall.

Unusual uses of paper in Selections 18 included Aura Rosenberg's cut-outs in the shapes of animal skins. Working three-dimensionally, Joseph Schactman constructed masks in the form of dog heads, and Bruce Wall painted ordinary corrugated cardboard boxes, opening and unfolding them in unusual abstract reliefs. Also working abstractly but two-dimensionally was Jamillah Jennings, whose geometric oil pastel drawings were brightly colored.

An impressionistic sense of light and color was reflected in Ruth Bauer's tiny landscapes and interiors. James Randall recorded the backyards and domestic countryside of Southern California in paintings on paper. Telephones were a recurring theme in the finely drawn contemporary still lifes of Kristi Hager, and Fred Schuback recorded observed scenes from everyday life in his carefully kept sketchbooks.

In Bart Thrall's triptych, two panels of figurative imagery from various sources were combined with a panel of text. A sequence of events unfolded, scroll-like in Linda Salerno's long oil pastel drawing. Hilda O'Connell recorded specific events in Northern Ireland in large colored pencil works, and in Scott Kilgour's small drawings, cubist figures romped in a landscape.

All of the artists in Selections 18 took part in a symposium on Wednesday, July 28 at 7:30 p.m. Artists discussed their work and answered questions from the audience.