Artnet Art Review: Sky Pape

Drawing Notebook
Review by N.F. Carlins, Artnet.com Magazine, October 2001

Also exhilarating is new work by the seasoned, Canadian-born artist Sky Pape. At first glance the pieces in Sky Pape’s “Silver Linings: Graphite Drawings” at June Kelly look like burnished aluminum disks in low relief against a flat background. At least the flat background is accurate. Pape uses only graphite in a freehand-drawn circle to conjure up a glowing central disc against pale yellow milk paint on board. Seemingly three-dimensional planes shimmer and dance before the viewer’s eyes. The shifting light effects are magical, seeming to emanate from a space deep inside the picture plane. The light then reaches out and vibrates within the beholder. Nature and Eastern esthetics are put to excellent use in these coolly luminous pieces.