Thick Lines and Layers

After dabbling in digital drawings on my iPad for a few weeks, I’m back to working with ink and paper again, which always feels good. Lately I’ve been gravitating more towards a multicolored, somewhat messier feel. I think subconsciously I got inspired by the newest Spiderman movie Across the Spiderverse. I really loved the hyperkinetic colors and animation that is stacked on top of each other like actual comic books.

I took a similar approach to my latest drawings that have mostly been confined to my sketchbook. I’m making more of an effort to play more in my sketchbook instead of rushing to translate my ideas to a bigger canvas. I think having this fellowship/residency is giving me the space to take my time and experiment, which is what making art should really be about.

At first, I started out with lighter colors and gradually added darker blue lines with the intention of stopping there for the sake of aesthetic but once I added thicker blacker lines that are a more defined interpretation of Proginoskes, everything snapped into place. In the Wind in the Door, Proginoskes had the ability to make himself invisible or “dematerialize” so I like to think of these latest works as a representation of this; a gradual state of coming into visibility.

Layering and also being messy is enormously therapeutic, especially in these wild times that we live in. The crazier they get, the more I seem to cling to drawing all of these different interpretations of this particular angel, which is interesting because I’m not a religious person. When I first started on Searching For Proginoskes, I was gravitating towards a character, forgetting or perhaps not really knowing, that this is how angels “actually looked” in the bible. I just wanted to interpret this cherubim, who was a teacher and loved to count all the stars in the universe.