Selections Spring 1995

Selections Spring 1995 featured the work of ten artists, including Stephen Dean, Michel Ensminger, Teresita Fernandez, Christopher Hammerlein, Alice Helander, Joyce Lightbody, Chris Ofili, Barry Ratoff, Anne Marie Schneider, and George Stoll. The Selections exhibition series, while typically non-thematic, provided the artists with an opportunity to present a significant body of work, and demonstrated the diversity of content, materials, and formal concerns found in contemporary drawing.

The exhibition pamphlet provided quotes from the artists, calling upon their relationship with drawing. Anne Marie Schneider says, "My drawing is a kind of daily writing. This permits me to avoid writing only with words. These drawings are images of the everyday—the figures are grotesque, in action, often in domestic settings." Drawing upon these ideas of writing, Christopher Hammerlein adds, "These drawings are from an illustrated autobiography, my own history 'written' with pen and ink, tools I've used to scribe 'mute' communiqués. I've mined memory to trace the arithmetic of the self."

Michael Ensminger writes, "It's about the paper, the photograph and/or the object and the texture, weight, color, age, shape, and purposefulness of the image/object and how these attributes help to define what new meanings will be acquired." Joyce Lightbody says, "The work operates for me as a hybrid mix between cartography, musical notation, and illuminated manuscripts. Maps or scores that serve as visual representations facilitating a spatial (and special) understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, and events." Teresita Fernandez writes, "Copied from photographs in food gift catalogues, these drawings deal with the romanticized idea of meat as 'beautiful.' Not unlike media representations of women, images of meat are airbrushed and cosmeticized to seduce and sell."

Alice Helander says, "I think of the hair drawings sculpturally. They are as much about balance as they are about the body." Stephen Dean says, "Whether the result is an object or image makes no difference. All that makes a difference is whether the manipulation remains, oscillating between the two dimensional sign and its substance." In a similar vein, George Stoll adds, "In making handmade copies of manufactured originals, I am rigorous in my efforts to copy verbatim what I see. I am rigorous in my efforts to copy verbatim what I see." Chris Ofili sums up the relationship in one sentence: "I like drawing." Barry Ratoff adds, "Whenever I feel like drawing, not when I feel I should be drawing, I'm usually happy with the results."

Selections Spring 1995 was one in a continuing series of exhibitions that brought the work of emerging artists from across the nation and abroad to public attention. All of the featured artists had participated in The Drawing Center's Viewing Program, a service which offered emerging artists an opportunity to present drawing to the curatorial staff for professional feedback and to be considered for inclusion in an exhibition.