Failure Envelope

J. Parker Valentine

In Residence: Jan 22 – Mar 25, 2013

Exhibition: Mar 21 – May 19, 2013


What is your process for creating drawings?

For this show, I decided to draw on muslin fabric, a fabric often used for sewing patterns. Drawing on its thin surface created impressions on the walls, which I chose to keep for the exhibition, although I edited and worked back into them. I started with large drawings on the large pieces of fabric, which I would then tear down and work into smaller compositions. I decided not to show the majority of these smaller compositions on muslin because they have representations on the wall and the prints.

How do the prints relate to the drawings?

The framed pieces are double-sided digital prints taken from in-process photographs of the drawings on fabric, but several also use found images. The paper is soaked in oil, making it transparent so the image printed on the back merges with the image on the front. The photos capture a moment in the process that does not exist anymore because the drawing has become something else—torn apart, erased, or drawn over. The wrinkles of the fabric become an integral part of the printed image.

In what ways are you using graphs?

Line graphs, like drawings, are a way to present information linearly. Several of the prints overlay a graph, taken from science or engineering, and a drawing, creating intersections between my drawn lines and the mechanically generated lines. Because most labels or text have been removed from the graphs, they become as abstract as the drawings, but their austerity creates a structure for the drawn lines. In the same way, the metal frames act like line graphs for the lariats. The lariat has its own integrity in its form. It will always keep its circular rigidity, so I wanted to connect it to the graphs in the least points possible.

What connections are you hoping to make between the pieces in this space?

I’m making literal connections between pieces through physical and visual convergences. This happens through both transparency and design. Some of these are changeable—you can walk around the sculptures and see the changing intersections of their lines against the lines on the walls. Furthermore, everything in the show is connected to everything else through its own history. Through my installation, I don’t want to point out directly what comes from what, so that there is no hierarchy.

Artist

J. Parker Valentine

Austin, Texas, USA

J. Parker Valentine’s process-laden drawings and installations lay bare her meticulous way of working wide-ranging surfaces from MDF panels to scraps of fabric to that of the wall. Her diverse practice also includes film, photography, painting, sculpture, and text. Drawing and erasing her marks, she photographs her process and often incorporates these images with new drawings. Born in Austin, in 1980, she splits her time between Texas and Brooklyn, New York. Valentine has had solo shows at Taka Ishii in Kyoto, Supportico Lopez in Berlin, Peep Hole in Milan, and Lisa Cooley in New York; she will have a solo presentation at the Langen Foundation in Dusseldorf this year, and will be included in Phaidon’s soon-to-be-released anthology on drawing, Vitamin D2.

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Curator

Suzanne Cotter

Porto, Portugal

The International Artists-in-Residence were selected by Suzanne Cotter, Curator of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project. Between 2002 and 2009, she held the positions of Senior Curator and later Deputy Director at the Modern Art Oxford. She has curated numerous exhibitions including Artpace alumni such as Candice Breitz, Mircea Cantor, Trisha Donnelly, and Silke Otto-Knapp. In 2011, she served as co-curator of the Sharjah Biennial. In 2006, she curated Out of Beirut, a pivotal survey of Beirut’s contemporary art and its accompanying symposium in Oxford, Public Time. The French Ministory of Culture and Communication honored Cotter with the prestigious Chevalier de l’Odre de Arts et des Lettres.

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