Works on Paper

August 25 - September 5, 2020

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press release

Moskowitz Bayse is pleased to present a selection of new works on paper by Eleanor Swordy, the inaugural exhibition in our Viewing Room. This presentation coincides with the last weeks of Earth Signs, the artist's exhibition of recent paintings, which has been extended through September 19, 2020.

In her drawings, Eleanor Swordy approaches form and figure in a distinct and divergent way than she does in her paintings, forming a conceptual appendage within her practice. Across the two, she frequently approaches the figure as ductile and essentially unencumbered by anatomical or perspectival orthodoxy. Figures in paintings typically define their surroundings, often seeming content to submit to the gravitational pulls to which they are subjected. In drawings, figures are often defined by the untouched space around them, lending an atmospheric quality–the paper’s fibrous weave–to the artists deliberate and sensitive use of negative space. In effect, these voids become participatory in the composition; drawn subjects appear fluid, as though one figure might slip into the next drawing, united by the paper itself, as a discrete ward of the artist’s ever-expanding universe.

Completed largely during an extended stay in Los Angeles during the run of her solo exhibition Earth Signs at the gallery, Swordy’s most recent works on paper represent the artist continuing to think through ideas visible in her paintings. Having set aside her drawing practice for the last year or so to focus on the work included in Earth Signs, the artist’s prolonged engagement with her paintings throughout the run of the exhibition proves generative. Seeking to both build on Earth Signs’ formal triumphs and move beyond them, Swordy’s drawings form a record of the artist reacting to her own work in real time. The resultant pieces, in which sharp edges and restrained use of form differentiate them from the canvases in Earth Signs, stand not as corollaries to the artist’s paintings, but as a powerful response to them.