Asphalt Drawings

A series of drawings that are also installations and performances. Created using the asphalt below my apartment as canvas during quarantine, they reclaimed this ever present surface into vehicles for connection. As Inhabitable Drawings and Participatory Documents, Asphalt Drawings transformed the materiality of the street engaging neighbors and the passerby into play and participation.

 

2022        Upstairs [ArtSpace] resumed exhibition of Asphalt Drawing Series at the Thinking Eye Exhibition, Tryon, NC

2022        moveMINT: The Experience immersive exhibit of Red by 270 degree projection on three walls at Lavan 541, Chelsie, NYC

2022        Adelia Gallery exhibition of alLineWay as part of NFT Liverpool. Selected by two curators

2021        Upstairs Artspace exhibition of Asphalt Drawing Series at the Thinking Eye Exhibition, Tryon, NC

 

alLineWay

It began as a conversation with the flickering shadows on the asphalt below my apartment during quarantine. This living full-scale document nourished me with movement and oxygen. Though temporal, it lasted for several days as a palimpsest of lines drawn, volumes created, and space inhabited in the sore muscles of my previously inactive body.

The impromptu activity as inhabitable drawing, performance, installation and meditation invited interaction and interplay with others in quarantine while transforming the materiality and dimensionality of the street. The audio composition references the spatio-temporal dynamic qualities of the expanding spaces created, and the fleeting dialogues and interactions that took place.

Now this temporal document has a place to exist long-term – on the blockchain – as an auditory and visual moving drawing which can be played and replayed.

Sound art collaborator/composer: Liz Lang

Red

A dancer is incorporated into this drawing of the collection – a colorful moment of creative spontaneity on this canvas of asphalt. Our movements brought elements from the streetscape & adjacent construction site into the composition and initiated an overlap of interactions.

The impromptu activity as drawing, performance and installation invited interaction & interplay with others in quarantine while transforming the materiality & dimensionality of the street.

Who said you can’t make new friends during a pandemic! A couple of kids, a poet, an actor, the passerby on bike, skateboard, neighbors & their dogs… Collective participation. A Full Scale Inhabitable Drawing. A living document. A meditation. A game!

This temporal document is minted as a diptych to exist long-term – on the blockchain – as an auditory & visual moving drawing which can be played and replayed.

Dancer: Claire Elizabeth Barratt
Sound piece: Grandfather Mountain by Kimathi Moore

The Message is Resilient

Tracing shadows creates the score and opens the stage for the symbols embodying solidarity and a plea for change. Carefully crafted, the durational performance on asphalt is the presence in the absence. I couldn’t be there, so I fully immersed myself in the most public space closest to home, (the alley below my apartment) drawing —lines in dialogue with building outlines cast. Moving and weaving space from morning to sunset, activating the framework for a message to the sky.

Time-lapse captures and compresses the document of a process, a place, and a message now imprinted in the blockchain. The audio composition expands it while enhancing the threshold between two scenes.

Scene 1 opens the stage —delicate lines mapping time create the scaffold for the message to come.

Scene 2 colors between the lines.

Sound art collaborator/composer: Liz Lang

 

For videos and other images visit #AsphaltDrawingSeries

 

These drawings are available for purchase at Foundation as NFTs

 

Shifting scales, below is a series of smaller drawings developed from photographs of the site drawings and other asphalt photographs which were further worked on. These drawings, as well as the videos of the above drawings were exhibited at Upstairs [ArtSpace] in Tryon N.C. as part of the Thinking Eye Exhibit curated by Jeff Kinzel and Hague Williams.

Visit also:

Dia De Los Trastos

Drawing In Between The Line

 

Dancer:

Cilla Vee Life Arts

Sound:

Kimathi M Moore

Liz Lang