Heads Built from Boxes
A head drawn as a box. This is where the Faces begin, on October 26, 2021, with a white square head on green, two starburst eyes in boxes and a grid of block teeth. Twenty-seven works hang here, nearly all from the five weeks that followed, and every one of them builds a face out of rectangles.
The box is a frame for parts. Eyes go in as rings, spirals or targets, one in each square. The mouth is a second box with teeth set in it like a grille. A nose is a triangle or a bar. Around the parts the box is filled with scribble, hatching or stripes until it is solid, and then the whole thing is set on a flat color.
Watch the boxes tilt. The first heads sit square. By December they lean, stack and turn, and by the following spring the box has become a tall stack with a mouth of giant bars.
The First Box
Four works from the first five weeks, October 26 to November 27, 2021. The box head arrives, loosens, and tilts.
Nifty Faces #1
The first work in the series. A white box head on green, two eyes as cyan starbursts in square frames, a nose of two yellow bars, and a mouth drawn as a grid of white block teeth. A red zigzag runs along the top like a hairline, and green, yellow and brown lines loop around the whole head. Seventy-seven strokes. Everything the room does is already here: the box, the parts in boxes, the grid of teeth.
Nifty Faces #3
A head in red, green and black scribble with a mane of red marks, one box eye ringed in white, and a wide red mouth at the lower right, open on white teeth.
Nifty Faces #6
An angular head in red, blue and yellow line on lavender, with an X in one box eye and bars in the other, a triangle mouth with green zigzag teeth, and a crown of spikes.
Nifty Faces #10
A head tipped on its side inside a yellow frame, drawn as a dense weave of white, green, orange and magenta lines, with two round eyes and a wide mouth at the bottom.
Two Days in Winter
November 30 and December 1, 2021, eight heads in two days. The parts settle: ringed eyes, triangle noses, boxed teeth.
Nifty Faces #12
Two square eyes side by side, each a red and white target in a box, a red zigzag at the right like a cheek, and below them a long box of white triangle teeth. Cyan hatching runs across the eyes in diagonals. The ground is white with black and green marks at the edges. It is the clearest stack of boxes in the room: eye, eye, mouth, nothing else.
Nifty Faces #13
A yellow box head on red with a row of white spikes along the top for hair, two ringed eyes with black pupils, a triangle nose, and a box of white teeth under it. Two white hands reach up at the sides, and two small feet stand at the bottom edge. Green, pink and blue hatching fills the box. Nothing else in the room took as many strokes: 801.
Nifty Faces #14
A box head of purple scribble on yellow, two square eyes with black pupils, a triangle nose, and a white slot of a mouth stitched with black lines.
Nifty Faces #16
A head of angular shards in red, green and cyan hatching on yellow, small box eyes, an open mouth.
Nifty Faces #17
A box head in profile on teal, wearing a top hat, with a grin of white teeth, drawn in yellow, green and red hatching.
Nifty Faces #18
A box head on brown with a spiral eye and a box eye, yellow ring earrings at both sides, and a row of white block teeth in a red box.
Nifty Faces #19
A box head on maroon with slanted brows and spiral eyes, a red mouth of white fangs, drawn in cyan, white and yellow over dense scribble.
Nifty Faces #21
A crowned box head in profile on white, facing right, drawn in red, yellow and black line, with a grin of white teeth.
Boxes That Tilt and Stack
December 1 to 6, 2021. Nine heads. The box leans, the jaw becomes a drawer, and the stack gets taller.
Nifty Faces #23
A tilted cube of a head on brown, filled with multicolor scribble, a mouth of teeth at the lower left.
Nifty Faces #24
A box head on navy drawn in cyan and yellow line, two pink spiral eyes, and a mouth of white blocks in a red box.
Nifty Faces #27
A head on dark brown with two ringed eyes under a pointed brow, and below them a jaw drawn as a drawer: a long box of white triangle teeth, then a second box, then a third, stacked down to the bottom edge. The whole head is filled with green, orange and pink scribble. The jaw here is a stack of its own, the first in the room.
Nifty Faces #29
A head with spiral eyes, spiral cheeks and a white zigzag crown, a V nose and a mouth of white zigzag, drawn in pink, orange and green line on dark brown.
Nifty Faces #31
A tall box head on black, two green ring eyes under a pink brow, and an open box of a mouth, drawn in pink, magenta and white scribble.
Nifty Faces #32
A box head on olive with two pink spiral eyes, a long nose, and a wide white mouth with yellow zigzag inside, drawn in green and blue facets.
Nifty Faces #35
A head drawn like a sign: stacked rectangles outlined in yellow, spiral eyes in boxes, and a box of black zigzag teeth, on dark olive.
Nifty Faces #43
A head on blue flattened into bands, drawn in yellow, orange and white line: a band of slit eyes with teeth above them, a band of nose, a wide band of lips, and a chin. The box has become a stack of stripes. Set beside the first head in the room, the parts are the same, eyes, nose, teeth, but every one has been pressed flat and widened.
Compare with #1, in this room
Nifty Faces #45
A patterned head on red with two spiral eyes, two rows of gappy white teeth, and yellow and green bars at the sides.
The Tall Stacks
January to March 2022. Six heads, spaced weeks apart, in which the box becomes a tall stack and the teeth grow huge.
Nifty Faces #53
A head of stacked patterned planes, one eye a box with a slot and the other a triangle, a band of huge white teeth across the bottom, in blue, red and yellow.
Nifty Faces #54
A rectangle face on teal with green target eyes and a mouth of zigzag, in pink, orange and green line.
Nifty Faces #55
A blocky head on plum, painted in gold and yellow with white scribble over it, two red spiral eyes staring out, and a mouth of clenched white teeth in a dark box. The head has weight: the brow and the cheeks are modelled in light and shadow, and the eyes sit in deep sockets. It is the one head in the room with shadow, and the spirals in its eyes are the room's spirals, drawn into a face that looks back.
Nifty Faces #75
A tall stack of a head on teal, two round white eyes at the top, a mouth of giant white bars in a brown box, drawn in black, brown and blue.
Nifty Faces #79
A head on blue with one huge black eye in a white ring, four red capsules for a nose, a grid of white teeth in a red box, and a yellow wavy edge down the right.
Nifty Faces #117
A box head with cat ears on teal, hatched in orange, black and yellow, with crossed eyes in boxes, a long nose, and a grin of white teeth in a red mouth. The last work in the room, from March 29, 2022, four months after the yellow box head with the spiky hair. The parts are the same: boxed eyes, a triangle nose, teeth in a box. The box has grown ears.
Compare with #13, in this roomClosing
Look again at the first box head, white on green, with its grid of teeth, and then at the cat-eared box from March. One is a box with parts in it. The other is a box with parts in it and ears. Five months of drawing, and the idea held.