WORK

The additive and subtractive process used in the making of my work results in a sedimentary layering, an abstracted geology of elements, in which the history of their creation remains visible in the final image. I draw from a faded memory bank of images, root systems, lava flows -archetypal systems of growth, flow and movement- that I wrestle into an abstracted, affective experiential state. All of my work is rooted in drawing which I define, following anthropologist Tim Ingold, “an indelible record of the pressure of the fingers on the pencil that makes it, driven by impatience, control, or anxiety of the maker… an archive of the maker’s muscle.” Any mis-step becomes incorporated into the physicality and density of the surface. The fragility of surface reveals tension about the relationship between collapse and renewal. I believe this process gives the artwork its authenticity and spark and most parallels nature’s phenomena in which the unpredictability of the elements in nature slowly but continually reshape the contours and topography of our landscape.  

Debra Weisberg 2019