Ghostland

Nils Karsten, Ghostland (2004), 13 1/2 inches by 11 inches, graphite on paper.

Gallery Joe's current show reads between the lines.

by Susan Hagen

"I had been wanting to do a figurative drawing show for a long time," explains Becky Kerlin of Gallery Joe. So for her current exhibition she gathered work by seven artists who have drawn figures engaged in remarkable dramas of contemplation, provocation, temptation and redemption, and set in diverse mise en scenes of landscapes, interiors and dreams. Some of the artists use their own experiences as a starting point for this process of graphic storytelling with human characters, while others work purely from their imaginations.

Robyn O'Neil, an artist from Nebraska who is now based in Houston, Texas, has contributed three small high-contrast graphite drawings of figures in snow-covered landscapes. In one drawing, titled The Pre-Conference with an Unfair Fight in the Back (2004), she sprinkles tiny men engaged in a variety of relaxed, athletic or fearful activities across a winter scene with undersized pine trees, an elegant mountain and an ominous sky. Nils Karsten, a German artist who now resides in New York, has two graphite-on-paper drawings, reminiscent of Henry Darger's epic sagas, that combine innocence and a subversive sexuality. Untitled (2004) shows three prenubile girls with hairy legs, surrounded by toys, laurel wreaths, wings, bullets, doodles and faint pentimenti under large areas of Wite-Out. (See more of his work this month at Vox Populi.) Like O'Neil and Karsten, Philadelphia-based Sarah McEneaney channels a hidden tension in her gouache-on-paper drawings. In the autobiographical drawing Phuket to Ko Phi Phi (1998), McEneaney wonderfully compresses her excitement and apprehension while watching the dark approaching hillsides and rich turquoise water on a ferryboat ride in Asia.

Sabeen Raja uses her training as a traditional miniaturist in Pakistan to express a personal view of the complexities of contemporary life in her two extraordinary watercolor drawings on handmade wasli paper. At the Tavern (2003) is only 5 1/2 by 4 inches, but filled with rich color and narrative details. A young woman in a tidy purple sweater covers her face while six monkeys harass her and brandish cigarettes, a tiny dildo and a miniscule bottle of Rolling Rock that almost seems drinkable. Local artist Rob Matthews is represented by 12 works from his similarly personal -- but more existential -- Sleepwalk series, all graphite-on-paper, 9 by 12 inches. They range in value from film-noir black to bright, solarized white. Sleepwalk: Philadelphia 4 (2003) shows a single figure, his face lit dramatically from below, emerging from the darkness while the rumpled bedding around him picks up little bits of light. The beauty of Matthews' drawings is in the silky, mineral sheen of their delicate and uniform, vertical hatching marks, like finely woven baskets or raw silk textiles.

Marilyn Holsing, another local artist, has contributed four of her enigmatic drawings made with harmonious and neutral colors using gesso, casein, pencil and acrylic. In Riddle (2003), 24 by 19 inches, a barefooted girl in a pretty dress has her braid stuck in a hole in the ground, so she leans back and tugs. She is decoratively surrounded by a diagrammatic landscape with a wizened tree, a bird and a few rocks, all set within an expanse of flat color -- like a fairy tale translated into a wallpaper pattern. Displayed in the vault gallery, San Francisco artist Josephine Taylor's magnificent Mummy (2003) is huge (58 by 118 inches) and drawn with diluted colored inks and pencil on paper. On this vast field of white paper, a young woman with an unnaturally large head, bloodshot eyes with solid gold irises and a shrunken body is swaddled in many layers of exquisitely rendered fabric in soft hues. She floats, in a reclining position, and seems to be dematerializing into the paper.

After a while it's clear that Kerlin has brought together a marvelous group of drawings that share, besides their narrative and figurative themes, a process of conscious and particularized craftsmanship. All of these artists have developed their own drawing methodology and are rigorously attentive throughout the creative process. It's just one more reason to see this show!

FIGURE OUT: DRAWING AS NARRATIVE

Through June 26, Gallery Joe, 302 Arch St., 215-592-7752

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