Selections 27

Selections 27, a group exhibition of new work by emerging artists, opened in 1984 at The Drawing Center. Nine artists were represented in the exhibition, all selected from the Artists' Viewing Program at the Center. The Viewing Program offered artists an opportunity to present original work to a staff member during a personal interview. Artists also had the option of dropping off original work without an appointment on Open Portfolio Day. All of the emerging artists shown in The Drawing Center's Selections series were drawn from these two programs. The artists in Selections 27 were: Ivy Dachman, Michael Evert, Joyce Fillip, Donna H. Gans, Alyson Garvey, Douglas Geiger, Mark R. Smith, Ken Sofer, and Stephen Talasnik. The rich variety of media and subject matter in this exhibition illustrated the broad range of works on paper included within the Center's definition of drawing.

Ivy Dachman's subtle graphite works called to mind Japanese prints; Michael Evert's humorous skeletal overlays painted onto magazine ads were actually practical studies in anatomy. Huge charcoal and pastel drawings of tempests, tornadoes, and other natural phenomena by Joyce Fillip were an outgrowth of her earlier involvement with sculpture. Donna H. Gans painted with her fingers to achieve direct contact with the paper in thickly painted works which confronted female sexuality. Alyson Garvey's pastel drawings also concerned women — they were not specific portraits but extensions of the artist and her moods.

Abstract works included Douglas Geiger's elegant paintings on paper and Ken Sofer's pieces which interplayed between the drawing and painting processes. Mark R. Smith's whimsical installation concerned a curiosity toward human beings in the environment and Stephen Talasnik's rich charcoal drawings were intended to serve as documents of invented archaeological findings.

The Drawing Center presented a symposium on Wednesday, December 5 at 7:00 p.m., in which all the artists participated.