“Color electrifies and vibrates. It whispers and screams within fractured, unstable environments.”
I consider myself to be an observer, a watcher on the lookout for anything unexpected.
As a child, with my head down, I walked through my days looking for nothing in particular but often finding something surprising and wonderful. I spent hours on my stomach searching through grass and leaves and snow for treasure – a four-leaf clover, a beetle, a button. I would also search, on a bigger scale, for quiet secluded and secret places. The object and the place were the treasure.
I approach my drawings in much the same way, always looking for something new that I haven’t seen or experienced before. For the last several years, I have been excavating my drawings. I do little to no preliminary work before beginning a drawing. Rather, the work is built while laying a series of diverse marks on the surface of the paper.
As the marks build up I begin to observe random relationships that form and change. These relationships lead me on a long rambling, visual dissertation that is built up and torn down and built up again…
The content of some of the recent work probes the subterranean. That which exists but is unseen is particularly enticing. All of the objects and beings that exist or have existed and are built up over time, inspire the current imagery.
I always work within series of drawings that can be as few as 20 drawings or as many as 75 – 100. The number is determined by how many drawings it requires for me to explore the idea fully. A series of drawings is finished when the challenge has lessened and the work becomes somewhat predictable. I work with a variety of media. Media and application are significant factors that form the complexity of the idea and soul of the drawing.
Detail: Subterrainean, 2018 | Charcoal 30 x 22"
I think of drawing as a language with many dialects, a manner of communicating. Often as I am working I feel like a foreigner who does not understand the language being spoken.
I build the drawing and learn its language at the same time. I gradually come to understand what I once perceived as the gibberish of my marks.
- polly ewens
About
I am a mixed-media artist living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Born here in 1950, I spent my childhood and adolescence doing the usual grade school and high school things. Most memorable, however, was spending the majority of my free time outdoors exploring and making things – twig and rock sculptures, elaborate drawings in the mud and river water paintings. I am certain that these activities inspired me to become an artist.
I am often asked why I draw rather than paint. While I was in school, I took as many drawing classes as possible but I became more fascinated with drawing when I started teaching it. While interacting with my students, I watched myself become passionate about the capabilities of expression held within drawing. I simply had to start drawing. Drawing is powerful, versatile and ancient and contemporary at the same time. We have all drawn and as children—most of us delighted in walking along dragging a stick in the mud watching a line follow us.
Full Bio | Artist statement | resumé
Contact
pollyewens@miad.edu
