|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sharon Butler, “Drew Shiflett: The Raw Transformative Power of Obsession,” www.twocoatsofpaint.blogspot.com, January 14, 2009 Drew Shiflett: The raw transformative power of obsession
Tonight at Lesley Heller Gallery, Drew Shiflett spoke cogently about her new drawings. Without supplying a fashionably overwrought interpretation of meaning, symbolism or metaphor, Shiflett addressed her frankly obsessive process. She told the standing-room only crowd that time slows down to a manageable pace when she focuses on drawing the thousands of tiny, rapidographed, stitch-like lines in each piece. In an essay for a 2004 solo show at the Islip Museum, curator Janet Goleas suggested that Shiflett's approach to her abstract, eccentrically-shaped drawings requires the fixed idea of meditation and a seemingly infinite dilated vision. "Often she creates mythical worlds or interior architectures of vast horizontality-- wheat fields, horizon lines, seascapes. Shiflett has talked about the influence the written word has had on her apprehension of structure. She is awed by the sheer deftness required to transport a reader from the beginning to the end of a novel, to convey the deeply transformative power of the written word and of the patience and craftsmanship needed to create an environment which can sustain large ideas. In contrast, Shiflett apportions her focus, leaving behind the greater narrative and honing in on phraseology or vignettes. As if excised from an immense field of vision, the rectangular segments in her drawings are like ghosts which have been spirited away from a larger whole. The artist weaves a delicate grid of fragile, tremulous pencil lines which barely graze the paper surface. Subtle, rhythmic and meditative, the lines coalesce into transparent scrims of soft organic geometry -- fetishistic, eccentric and diffuse. These elemental structures, founded on ambiguity and the raw transformative power of obsession, are anchored tentatively at the far reaches of the picture plane where they cleave to its outer margins. Here they lay claim to a geography which is parenthetical, a place reserved for note taking and the residues of subject matter. But like slow moving glaciers these intricate fragments have come to restlessly brake at the paper’s edge as if gradually sliding through the stories of their own Ice Age." "Drew Shiflett," Lesley Heller Gallery, New York, NY. Through January 31. |
 |
Constructed Drawings, essay by Nancy Princenthal, 2011, Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York "Beautiful Dreamer", essay by David Gibson, 2005, SPACES, Cleveland, Ohio “Collection Insights: Drew Shiflett On Linear Thinking,” essay by Janet Goleas, 2004, Islip Art Museum, East Islip, New York “Work in Process,” essay by Kristen Frederickson PhD, 2003 "Making It Up," essay by curators David Finn and Victor Faccinto, 1999 "Correct Me If I'm Wrong," essay by Barry Schwabsky, 1997 In Three Dimensions: Women Sculptors of the '90s, essay by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein (catalog), '96 Margaret McInroe, “Survival,” Hunter College (catalog), '95 Charles Long, "Critical Mass",Dallas Artists Research (catalog), '94 Kathleen Cullen, "Drew Shiflett", The Interart Center (catalog), '93 Nancy Princenthal, "Idio Cognito" (catalog), '93
Janet Goleas, "An Identity With the Process," The East Hampton Star, November 10, 2011 Jennifer Landes, “Artists Do Still Live Here,” The East Hampton Star, May 14, 2009 Elise D’Haene, “The Art Scene – Top Honors For Drew Shiflett,” The East Hampton Star, May 7, 2009 Pat Rogers, “A Show That’s Fun and Exciting,” The Southampton Press, April 30, 2009 Pat Rogers, “350 Artist Members All Under One Roof,” The Easthampton Press, April 29, 2009 Ariella Budick, “A Whiter Shade of Pale Suggesting Angels, DNA,” Newsday, July 20, 2007 Karen Searle, "Plane & Form at Minnesota Center for Book Arts," Hand Papermaking, June Issue 2006 Jill Conner, “CustomFit,” Contemporary, Issue no. 52, 2003 Phoebe Mitchell, "Hampden Gallery Abstracts Invite Viewers Within," Hampshire Gazette, May 1, 2003 Rachel Youens, "In Review - Sculpture at Flipside," Arts, Vol. 1, Number 4, wburg.com, 2001 Holland Cotter, "Sculpture," The New York Times, May 11&18, 2001 Ken Johnson, "Invented Spaces" The New York Times, Jan. 19&26, 2001 Tom Patterson, "New York Explorers" Winston-Salem Journal, Mar. 21, '99 Tom Patterson, "All That Jazz," Winston-Salem Journal, Mar. 7, '99 Annie Herron, "Fresh Perspectives," Review, March 15, '97 Helen A. Harrison, "Artists Who Make Work Out of Play," The New York Times, January 7, '96 Tom Moody, "Critical Mass," Art Papers, July/Aug., '95 Shawn Hill, "Nature's Ordeal," Bay Windows, Nov. 17, '94 Grace Glueck, "Update 1984-85," The New York Times, June 21, '85 Marilu Knode, “22 Wooster ‘Rhythm and Form’,” Manhattan Arts, Vol 11, No. 2, Feb. 1, '84
|
