Last wednesday I went to an artist's lecture at MassArt. The presenter was New-York based artist Stephen Talasnik, a fascinating and funny man who held me in rapt attention for the full hour and a half. His work is comprised mostly of graphite drawings on paper and some large-scale sculpture. His drawings are entirely black and white, heavily detailed and loaded with visual interest. They have an otherworldy quality about them that I found very compelling. He quoted architecture and black and white photography as sources of inspiration, and presented his work alongside these sources. A strong interest in engineering, architecture and invention was highly evident in his work. I was also very impressed with his capacity for speaking clearly and concisely about his work. He was very articulate and engaing. I didn't take notes but I will list some nuggets that stand out in my memory:
- Let the paper bear some responsibility as a working material in a drawing. It is not always entirely up to the tool to create the drawing. The drawings of George Seurat are an excellent example of this philosophy.
- Black and White can be so much more powerful than color. A black and white image is capable of a timelessness where as an image containg color can pinpoint it in time. Using black and white carries with it a potential for time-travel.
-Intuition and the imagination are as necessary to abstract work as the materials themselves. Technical ability and drawing representationally are always necessary to compelling works of art but the role of one's intuition is paramount in making them distinctive.
I highly recommend checking out his work on his website: www.stephentalasnik.com