Crossed-Out Eyes
Box heads with their eyes struck through. In this room the eye is an X, a red cross, a plus sign, or a letter, and the box head of the first room comes back with its eyes cancelled. Twenty-six works, from December 1, 2021 to March 18, 2022, and then the collection piece, #0000, made in July.
The cross is drawn many ways. A red X over a ring. A plus sign in a white box. Two red bars. And in a handful of works the eyes spell the artist's name: an X in one box, a Y in the next, a Z in the third. The letters N, N, X, Y and Z appear as eyes, as a brow, and on #48 as the whole face.
Watch the mouth under the crossed eyes. It is almost always a grid of white block teeth in a box, and as the eyes get stranger the teeth stay the same. The room ends on the one work that puts every mark in the series into a single square.
The First Crosses
December 1 to 6, 2021. Eight box heads, the first with green crosses in its eyes, the last with the artist's name written across the whole face.
Nifty Faces #26
A box head inside a white box frame on green, with two ringed eyes crossed by green plus signs, a V of red and white for a nose, and bands of yellow and red filling the face. Two small boxes with spirals sit at the sides like ears. It is the first crossed eye in the series, from December 1, 2021, drawn not as a cancellation but as a plus sign laid over a target.
Nifty Faces #28
A tilted box head on green in cyan, pink and yellow scribble, one eye a white X in a ring.
Nifty Faces #39
A rounded box head on dark teal in cyan and red scribble, two red crosses in blue eye boxes, and a mouth of white triangle teeth.
Nifty Faces #40
A box head on white in magenta and yellow scribble, two orange crosses in white eye boxes, and white block teeth in a tilted box.
Nifty Faces #42
A block head on blue stripes with two orange ringed eyes crossed in white, and a mouth open on two rows of white teeth, upper and lower.
Nifty Faces #46
A horned owl mask on blue with a yellow zigzag crown, a white X in one eye and a dot in the other, and a grille of white teeth in a red box.
Nifty Faces #48
The artist's name as a face. The letters N and N sit at the top in white, X Y Z in a box below them, a plus sign in cyan beside them, and a cross in a ring at the right. Below, a row of white ovals for teeth and a second row of ovals under a yellow wave. On purple and blue with yellow bars. Nothing here is a nose or a cheek; the face is made entirely of the name and its marks.
Nifty Faces #50
A dark square with neon slashes of lime, red, pink and blue across it, a pink X in one eye and a heart in the other, and a brown drip running down the center of the face. The mouth is a pink bar at the bottom. Where the name was drawn as a face a few hours earlier, here the marks have been thrown at the square: the X is a slash, the slashes are the face, and the drip runs through all of it.
Compare with #48, in this roomCrosses and Plus Signs
December 31 to February 8. Six heads over five weeks, with red crosses, plus signs and target eyes, and long fangs.
Nifty Faces #51
A box head with coils at the sides like springs, two triangle eyes with red crosses, a big grid of white teeth, drawn on the last day of 2021.
Nifty Faces #52
A box head on grey with two pink boxes for eyes, each with a white plus sign, a row of big white block teeth in a red box, and a comb of yellow and black spikes along the top for a crown. Drawn on the morning of January 1, 2022, in ninety-four strokes. A month after the first green crosses, the plus sign has become the whole eye: a white cross in a pink box, nothing else.
Compare with #26, in this room
Nifty Faces #57
A head on yellow and white with a sunflower for one eye, green petals around a target, and a red cross for the other, two boxes of white teeth side by side.
Nifty Faces #60
Red and black boxes on white, one eye with a red cross, a small mouth of white teeth.
Nifty Faces #67
A box head on dark brown with a red cross in one eye and a red X in the other, long white fangs in a dark mouth, and yellow wavy marks floating on the ground.
Nifty Faces #70
A box head on orange in pink and blue line, a red cross in one eye and a red X in the other, a grille of white teeth in a red box, and a crest of yellow strokes.
X, Y and Z
February 9 to 20, 2022. The eyes become letters. Six heads in which an X, a Y and a Z sit where the eyes should be.
Nifty Faces #76
A box head on lavender with three boxes in a row for eyes, and in them an X, a Y and a Z in red. Below, two boxes of white teeth side by side and a third box of teeth at the bottom. Horns of red line stand at the top corners. The name has moved from the brow to the eyes, one letter to a box, and the head has three eyes to hold it.
Nifty Faces #78
A box head on teal with a white X in one eye and a red cross in the other, a crown of yellow spikes, and a long bar of white teeth in a red box.
Nifty Faces #80
A round head on orange and purple with two star X eyes in boxes, a white nose, and a ring of white teeth around the chin like a collar.
Nifty Faces #91
A head on magenta with a yellow X in one eye and a blue target in the other, a yellow Y for a nose, a grin of white teeth and a second small mouth under the left eye.
Nifty Faces #92
A box head on olive with three boxes for eyes in a row, X, Y and Z in red, a triangle for a nose like a house, a column of blue ovals, and a box of white teeth. Eleven days after the first three-eyed head, the letters are back in their boxes, and the head is built from blocks: a box for the eyes, a box for the nose, a box for the teeth.
Compare with #76, in this room
Nifty Faces #96
A box head on orange with a yellow hat brim, two red X marks in white eye boxes, a bar of white teeth, standing on a post like a sign.
Last Boxes and the Collection Piece
February 27 to March 18, 2022, five last box heads, and then the collection piece, drawn in July, which gathers every mark in the series into one square.
Nifty Faces #97
A box head on purple standing on two posts, with two eyes of red bars in boxes, a yellow crest, and a long bar of white teeth.
Nifty Faces #99
A box head on yellow with goggles, two white ovals joined by a bar, each with a red cross, and a wide grin of white teeth.
Nifty Faces #101
A tilted box head on grey with two red X eyes in red, black and yellow scribble, teeth below.
Nifty Faces #106
A box head on olive, a red X in one eye, a red bar in the other, white teeth below.
Nifty Faces #109
A box head on maroon with a red and white X in a cyan box for one eye and a slash in the other, orange horns, a long nose, and a grin of white teeth, the last of the crossed boxes, from March 18, 2022.
Nifty Faces #0000
The collection piece, an edition of one, drawn on July 20, 2022, four months after the last numbered face. A dense square of pattern: the letters N, N, X, Y and Z drawn large in the center, a red heart at the top, a flower at the right, beads, zigzags, grids and teeth filling every corner. With 753 recorded strokes it is the most worked drawing in the Faces. The name that was a face in December is here the whole picture.
Compare with #48, in this roomClosing
The first crossed eyes were green plus signs on a box head in December. The last work is the collection piece, where the letters of the name fill the square. The X started as a mark on an eye. By July it was the subject.