Fold.

Drawing is an essential part of my creative process.  My drawings are the voice for things I don’t know how to say- sometimes for things I didn’t even know I wanted to say. They are my own personal language.  Each line is like a letter. The lines forge together to form words.  From a mass of lines emerges the image. 

My recent drawings are a series of images, each a moment frozen in time.  The images flicker like a flip book, grotesquely pieced together to illustrate a story of personal struggle that is universally understood.  It is my story, it is your story.  We see these images and hazily remember moments that have been crushing, causing us to fold: physically and metaphorically.  Our bodies fold as we hold ourselves from falling apart, and we “fold” as we give up- hoping to begin again with a better hand.  In these images we also see and appreciate the strength gained in rising from such a fall. 

The drawings depict a single figure in a vast and dense space visually created by the surrounding expanse of the black surface. These figures, formed, yet ghostly, float heavily in the space, while their emotion hangs thick around them.  Stark value contrast between figure and space further describe their isolation.  Some are set in quickly recognized poses, while others defy immediate identification.  Graceful, yet raw mannered rendering serves to express both beauty and inner chaos- the exact emotion is subtle and ambiguous to remain open to the viewer’s ability to channel their own feelings and experience through it.  Layers of communication between drawing and viewer are created by the works’ unyielding dramatic presence and intense emotional complexity.  The residual vulnerability from my own experiences inhabits the figures, visually generating the power, grace, loneliness, and fragility that play out the narratives of these works.

Each drawing measures 22.5” x 28” and is charcoal on paper. 

Heather Duffy