I create large-scale wall drawings with very few materials: usually a light source, a surface, and pigment. The addition of light to these drawings makes them appear convex, creating a tension between the siphoning negation of the light-absorbent charcoal and their dominating and protruding physicality. This dichotomy is revisited in the extremely restrained abstract forms, which, on closer view, can be seen as a culmination of idiosyncratic physical marks. They embody notions of mass, the sublime, and the totemic. I like to think of them as “gesticulations in the void.”
Twins – 2011 – Charcoal on paper 96 x 192 inches Down in the Valley – 2012 – Charcoal on paper, wood, acrylic lens, and work lights Dimensions variable
SPENCER R ABIN
www.spencerrabin.com born San Diego, California, 1978
education BA in Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003 MFA, San Francisco Art Institute, 2012
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