DRAWING CHALLENGE VIII

We are thrilled to announce Heiner Blumenthal, Kylie Heidenheimer, Ben La Rocco, and Charles Mary Kubricht as the featured contestants of our Drawing Challenge VIII, which was inspired by the following quote from Kenneth Rexroth's essay
Disengagement: The Art of the Beat Generation (1957).
We would like to thank the artist Cody Jones for suggesting these lines.

"Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense: the creative act.”

Charles Mary Kubricht, Signals, 2020, silver ink, gouache on linen, 36 x 48 inches

”Again the pressure pushes me in the chair, shuts my eyes. I notice the card red tongues of the flame outfit the windows. I’m trying to memorise, fix all the feelings, the peculiarities of this descending, to tell this, who will be conquering space after me.”

- Charles Mary, 2020
www.charlesmarykubricht.com

Ben La Rocco

”The Covid Quarantine has caused me to reflect more deeply on the nature of time. It has been a regressive spell for me, and I have gone back to drawing the stick figure warriors of my childhood. I have wondered why these images had such power for me then. Why they still do. And I have thought about how the great changes in my life since I was a child have left some part of me completely untouched. As though not a moment had passed. When I read the quote it made me think that each time I make a drawing, I go back to that original self. This drawing is about that.”

- Ben La Rocco, 2020

FEAT_Heiner Blumenthal 2018 no titel ink on paper 297 x 210 mm jpg.jpg

Heiner Blumenthal, Untitled, 2019, ink on paper, 11 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches

“This sentence by Kenneth Rexroth reminds me of the famous text of Barnett Newman from 1947: “The first man was an artist." Newman did influence me by his radical position. In my work, my paintings and drawings are no preliminary models or studies. The picture is developed or “found" during a longer process of improvisation and construction at the same time. They come about slowly over highly differing periods of time. The fact of being possible, of balancing out,always remains inherent to them, even when they are completed. The painting or drawing is a possible and necessary design at the same time.”

Heiner Blumental, 2020
www.heinerblumenthal.de

Kylie Heidenheimer, CROSSING, 2019, oil on paper, 30 x 22 inches

“Today the ruin of the world includes Minneapolis, Ferguson and New York City. It is the burning embers of cars and stores incinerated by Molotov cocktails. Defense is drawn in paint, charcoal, something else. It is abstract. Spaces go past support edges. They are just, thriving.”

- Kylie Heidenheimer, 2020
www.kylieheidenheimer.com

FEAT_Michelle Oosterbaan_Michelle_Cutout_Detail.jpg

Michelle J. Oosterbaan

www.michelleoosterbaan.com

Carol Warner, A Place Called Morning, 2020, acrylic and ink on paper, 22 x 28 inches

“During these times, creative acts are more important than ever — they center and unite us as a community, and identify images and language that express our humanity.”

-Carol Warner, 2020
www.carolwarnerstudio.com

FEAT_Carol Warner_place called morning.jpg

Mario Naves, Spolia (2017), acrylic on panel, 16 x 16 inches

"Blind alleys, unexpected digressions and a variety of conundrums are set out, jettisoned, excavated and explored. In pursuing and then clarifying this turn of events, I aim to create paintings that are as puzzling and peculiar as life itself."

- Mario Naves, 2020