I just recently went to see Jill O'Bryan's show at CCA called "Mapping Resonance," and think it relates to the mapping process, rubbings, cracks and drippy painting techniques we saw you using in your studio visit. If you haven't heard of her yet, I think she is definitely worth a look, especially since we are in New Mexico! Unfortunately the show was just taken down but you can see documentation of the work on her website. She lives/works at least partially here, so maybe....studio visit potential?
Jill O'Bryan Website
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| Detail of Mesa Frottages |
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| Install Shot (weird drip paintings on the floor) |
Here is a bit about the show from CCA's archives:
"O’Bryan installs a new series of sculptural plaster vessels, residue paintings, breath drawings, and a series of large scale (10’x 6’) rubbings (frottages) of the New Mexico Mesa, where she resides for half of the year. All of the work requires the full faculty of her body to create. O'Bryan refers to the Tonglen Breathing technique to create her breath drawings. She makes them with mindful breath in hours-long marathon drawing sessions that happen over several months, or years. The over-sized ‘Mesa Frottages’ involve the artist physically recording a 10' x 6' portion of the mesa through rubbing graphite on paper. Her other large works imply documentation rather than create it. On the opposing wall of the ‘Mesa Frottages,’ are a series of intuitive renderings of rock formations, a series of work she calls “on, and just above the ground.” Her new series of plaster ‘Vessels’ reference ancient metates (a flat or slightly hollowed oblong stone or depression on which materials such as grain are ground using a smaller stone) that are clustered in groups out on the mesa she draws. Sitting in the center of the gallery is a 10' x 40' long platform holding thirty-eight ink and tea blots on rice paper, alluding to metate-like depressions on the mesa. Intermingling so many projects dealing with a singular topic brings a conversation about imagined and actual history to Mapping Resonance.
'This exhibition is about the residue of both nature and civilization and finding one's way through centuries, if not millennia, of dust and rock. I am not interested in what may have come to pass but the relationship of cause and effect,' states the artist Jill O'Bryan. 'The work exists as a record of an action, a testament to what is 'produced' or left behind.' Curator Angie Rizzo goes on to say 'Mapping Resonance addresses and reimagines O'Bryan's contemplative practice, which has become thoroughly intermeshed in her artistic practice, further emphasizing the importance of interconnection.'"
(Taken from https://www.ccasantafe.org/archive-visual-arts/924-coming-soon-mapping-resonance)
Thank you SO MUCH for this! I have indeed looked at Jill O'Bryan before, although I have not dug too deeply into to her work and practice probably just because of preoccupation. But this brings to light some VERY pertinent things in my practice and shines a light on some of the things I struggle with. I particularly enjoy the investigation that lies between "imagined and actual history to Mapping Resonance". I am so often ping-ponging around what mapping can actually be, what it refers to, and how it can manifest itself (both in my experience and they physical artwork). As someone who spends a lot of time outside of her studio (or in what I like to call an extension of my studio), it is nice to see how the expanse of time and location is involved in her work. The physicality is nice as well ex.: "full faculty of body to create". I loved the terminology of it as a record. I feel like this coincides with the definitions I have of mapping as containing aspects of collecting and cataloging. I'd love to chat more with you about your personal experience at the exhibit and am looking forward to researching further. Once again, thanks so much!
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