MARGO KREN

JUNE 4 - 25, 2021

In 1991 I clipped drawings done by early masters that I had found reproduced in old art magazines. Now twenty years later I have found a use for these clipped drawings in my series To Be Human. I began by reproducing a drawing of a human figure done by an earlier master. I added one I found recently done by the contemporary artist Rappaport. I used my digital projector to display a special part of the drawing onto my canvas. I drew an image on the canvas in a way that gave enough room for an additional image of my own choosing. I was looking for ones that would invite a dialogue, foster a comparison, or beg a question of the first drawing. In the end I chose photos of my own that I had taken during my travels in Bhutan, France, China, Mali, Holland and Cuba and then went ahead and sketched them out on the canvas.

I knew it would be a challenge to complete a charcoal drawing if I went with the artists I chose because they differed from one another in the methods they used. They used a pen or a brush to apply ink on paper, or they drew an image on a plate to be printed. But I did not intend each drawing to be an exact copy — instead it was to be just fairly close to the original work. Not wanting an exact copy, I reproduced the drawing using charcoal each time over the woven surface covered with gesso. The charcoal did not glide easily as it would have over a smooth paper. Instead it bumped along over the woven gesso surface. To secure the charcoal drawings to the surface I used high-quality French spray fixative that will not yellow. Also, under these works lie the unsuccessful beginnings of a series of oil paintings that I attempted eighteen years ago. I added three coats of gesso over the old paintings and began anew. The result was that the underpainting of old works gave me an even more complex surface on which to work.

A few observations about elements in two of these paintings can suggest my approach throughout the series. In one painting, a Chinese soldier is seen from the back, his straight-cut uniform hiding his body — and, in contrast, we see a drawing of a male nude by Munch, this figure free of the restriction signified by the soldier’s rigid clothing. In print of a woman with flowing hair by Munch can be compared with the undulations of the Konza Prairie in the midst of a nighttime burn.

One thing I wanted to make clear in this series is that the yellow-and-white background areas sometimes become important shapes in their own right. As the 80 year-old-woman that I am, I sense within myself the mature painter’s “letting go” – a ticking clock focuses the mind. There is a simplification, a certitude and clarity to the work, whereas the young take their time and end up having no time for psychological complexity.