"The Truths and Lies of Friendship," graphite and milk paint on board, 40" h x 40" w x 1-3/4", 2001
Silver Lining
Read more: NY Arts Magazine Sky Pape at June Kelly Gallery Review by Carl E. Hazlewood
Read more: Artnet Magazine Drawing Notebook, Review by N.F. Carlins
Silver Lining – Graphite drawings
Although visually different from the preceding series, Inklings, these graphite drawings, with their appearance of polished metal relief sculpture, are very much a continuation of Pape’s intensive reexamination of traditional drawing materials.
This series, Silver Lining, is bound by the formal constraints of a freehand circle drawn within a square format, using graphite pencil applied with maximum force. Inherent to this process is the experience of pressure and release, and a sense of meditative intimacy. The drawings are poised between image and physicality, and recall the close kinship of drawing to sculpture through a strong suggestion of three dimensionality. However, just as reality is not static and our perception of things is mutable, so too the appearance of these drawings is in flux. The surface is one of continuous transformations as shapes appear, move, and disappear affected by the direction of the drawn mark and the complex play of light, shifting and bouncing off the naturally reflective graphite as the viewer moves before it. The drawings are physically arduous and demand exacting articulation, yet remain matter-of-fact. Without the drama of broad gesture, they stay true to their simplicity of form, resolute in their psychological inwardness. Informed by nature, science, and eastern aesthetics, and armed with the simplest tools, Pape makes circles within squares–these “portals.” The beauty and greatness of visual language is its ability to slip through the grasp of direct statement. It allows one to glimpse “it” through the corner of one’s eye, but upon direct scrutiny, all certainty disappears.