CHRIS ADLER
Drawings No. 31, 57, 1, 67, 65, 47: A Line Dividing the City from the Country
3 November - 9 November 2020
3 November - 9 November 2020
Drawings No. 31, 57, 1, 67, 65, 47: A Line Dividing the City from the Country is a set of large format photographs that Chris refer to as drawings to shift the dialogue into a gestural, abstract, poetic realm. The works also have individual titles and are each 30’’ x 24’’ archival pigment prints.
These photographs are called drawings to suggest their gestural and participatory approach to landscape photography. They depict quiet alterations made to the land, often just to a bare patch of ground. For the artist, each work marks a temporary, meaningful site embedded with meditations on everyday life.
They claim fragments as narrative artifacts, treat material remnants as feeling sculptures, and prize absence over presence. Sometimes the titles become discursive poems. Having grown up on archaeological excavations, these works are heavily influenced by a childhood spent staring at the ground.
Titles
Drawing no. 31 (chevy) the center of a donut made by an old chevy left untouched between two winter rains
Drawing no. 57 (open circle) a photo taken on the first day of summer and developed on the last day of summer
Drawing no. 1 (mask) I plugged my camera into a rock
Drawing no. 30 (pole) a line dividing the city from the country
Drawing no. 67 (Tom’s rock’s) 30 rocks from Tom’s garden arranged in a grid on a sheet pan in the sun
Drawing no. 65 (Tom’s grid) 9 sticks collected by my son and stuck into a puddle we made because he loves the rain
Drawing no. 47 (9 lines) grid after the rain
