Sarah Vaeth Art- New Work (2008-2009)

Home Paintings (2006 - 2007) Works On Paper (2003 - 2007) Recent Work (2008-2009) Resume

RecentWork (2008-2009)

These are minimal works- in which the accumulation of line or mark reaches its culmination on the side of spareness.
Selected from two concurrent series - reflecting two modes of working- these pieces have as their common thread a metaphor of constructedness.
This is the crucial principle of my work in recent years. My process is driven by activities like building, dismantling, rebuilding, selecting.
Initially this construction metaphor informed my approach to abstraction. I became attracted to the image "built" out of units of line or patches of texture.
Ultimately this action demanded its antithesis, and I began to subject images to a stage of unbuilding.
Spacial drawings like Mutable Box begin as symmetrical and firmly supported quasi-architectural forms-
then I begin to introduce flaws in the integrity of the structure, moments of slippage.

This construction principle has come into play too in the tablels - a recent engagement in observational drawing.
The elements of these little still lifes are arranged and rearranged until they seem to strike a tenuous balance between intentional placement and disarray.
Some include sculptural elements, put together seemingly casually, and, as casually, dismantled.
I go through a lengthy process of handling and manipulating these elements before executing the drawing. There's an architectural approach in this process as well.
The drawing itself is a procedure of re-touching every element of what feels to me to be a very temporary, changeable arrangement.

Mutable Box. 7" x 11" x 5". Steel Wire. 2008.