Artlog

Like the Spice is pleased to present Forming Lines: Translations Between Drawing and Sculpture an exhibition examining the many relationships between sculpture and drawing. The show features works by Rachel Beach, Seth Cohen, Beka Goedde, Dean Goelz, Abby Goodman, Barry Hazard, Allie Rex, Marc André Robinson, Rodger Stevens, and Kathleen Vance.

Translations between two and three-dimensional space, the works in this show explore the relationship between line and form. Drawings are both reference and original; sculptures are end product or study and vice versa. This exhibition acts as a Rosetta Stone for visual translation, exploring how drawings turn out when realized in three dimensions and the ways a sculpture’s color, form and scale change when documented in two dimensions.

Illusion is almost always explicit in drawings: illusory space, illusory textures, imaginary places and impossible situations are all common factors in drawings. It is easier to forget the illusions in sculpture. From tricks of perspective to deceptive finishes, sculptures aren’t the honest hunks of matter we sometimes take them for.

One key difference between drawing and sculpture is that a drawing’s illusions are usually self-contained, staying on the paper. A sculpture however is always engaged in symbiosis with its environment. A sculpture can make a space seem smaller than it is, dominating everything around it. The same sculpture is dwarfed by an outdoor space, looking like an abandoned toy. The perception of sculpture is easily affected by its context and vice versa, conditions of space and light drastically change our experience of a sculpture whereas a drawing is fairly independent, forming its own context.