Skulls and Shadows
Skulls, hoods and heads coming out of the dark. The twenty works in this room share a ground of black or near-black, and what the drawing does is pull a face out of it: with a halo of ochre, a white line, a pair of lit eyes, a grille of teeth. They run from December 2021 to April 2022.
Two kinds of dark are here. In some works the black is a flat ground, and the head is drawn on it in line, as in the hooded skull with letters on its brow, made in twenty-six strokes. In others the black is paint, and the head is modelled out of it with highlights, as in the blue head with yellow slit eyes.
Watch the teeth. They are nearly the only white in most of these pictures, and they are what the eye finds first: a zipper, a grille, four fangs, a row of pegs hanging from a jaw.
Heads in the Dark
Four works from December 4 to 6, 2021. A head in an ochre halo, a black head on white, a blue head lit from inside, and a face in a pink frame.
Nifty Faces #36
A head on black inside a halo of ochre, with two target eyes in yellow rings, a white zigzag along the brow, and a mouth of white teeth drawn like a zipper. Inside the head the fill is colored scribble, cyan, pink and yellow, with black line over it. The halo is the only soft thing in the picture, a band of brown that keeps the head from falling into the black. The series' first dark work.
Nifty Faces #37
A black head on a white ground, with one ringed eye and one boxed eye, a long nose, and a grille of grey teeth in a red mouth, its inside a tangle of colored scribble.
Nifty Faces #38
A dark blue head with two yellow slit eyes and a grin of white teeth, painted in blue and black with white highlights along the crown. The eyes glow in their sockets, and the light on the head comes from the upper left, picking out the brow and leaving the jaw in shadow. The grin curves up at the right. The only painted head in the room that shines, and the first.
Nifty Faces #44
A face in a frame of pink loops on dark red, with one eye a sun of orange rays and the other an arched box, and a grille of white teeth at the bottom.
Skulls and Hoods
January 21 to February 9, 2022. Seven works in three weeks: a ghost skull, a skull in white line, a tall head with starburst eyes, and four hooded figures.
Nifty Faces #56
A skull drawn in yellow and orange loops over a ground of vertical dark strokes, with two hollow eyes and a grille of white teeth, like a ghost in a curtain.
Nifty Faces #59
A face drawn in white and red line on dark red, with X marks in both eyes, spiky lashes, and a small mouth of fangs, in forty-seven strokes.
Nifty Faces #63
A tall head on dark teal with two starburst eyes under spiky lashes, a green cross for a nose, and a mouth of five white teeth in a box. The head is drawn in white, orange and cyan line over soft vertical strokes of blue and grey, so it seems to stand in rain. The two eyes are different: a white disc at the left, an orange ring at the right. The cross on the nose is drawn in green zigzag.
Nifty Faces #71
A black mass of hair on grey, and in it a face: two white eyes with dark pupils, a short line for a nose, and four white fangs. Twenty-three recorded strokes, the fewest in the room. The hair is drawn as a few loops of white line over black, and the black is one shape. The whole face is the eyes and the fangs.
Nifty Faces #72
A hooded skull on black, drawn in white line with a red hood, and the letters N N X Y Z written in red across its brow and its eyes. Two rows of white teeth sit below. Two hands rest at the bottom in red outline. Twenty-six strokes. The letters are the artist's name, and they sit on the skull where the eyes should be, so the name does the looking.
Nifty Faces #73
A hooded figure on black, its hood and shoulders outlined with yellow dots, a white face with one sun-burst eye and one red star eye, and a grille of white teeth in a red box.
Nifty Faces #74
A hooded head painted in orange and brown, with no face at all except a wide grin of white teeth in the dark of the hood.
Beams and Blue Eyes
February 12 to 21, 2022. A horned head, a skull with pink eyes lit by beams, a skull with blue eyes, and a bird skull.
Nifty Faces #84
A horned dark head on green, with two tall white eyes under a heavy brow and a grille of yellow teeth, drawn in black and blue scribble over soft green blobs.
Nifty Faces #88
A skull with two huge pink eyes, each a ring of magenta rays around a white center, lit by pale beams that cross the square from the upper left. The skull is drawn in black and colored line over dark, and the mouth is a row of white triangle teeth in a dark box. The beams are the first in the Faces, soft bands laid over everything. Where they fall, the lines show through them.
Nifty Faces #90
A skull painted in pink, brown and grey on black, with two blue eyes in dark sockets, each a ring of blue with a white highlight, and a row of white teeth hanging from the jaw at the lower right. Nothing is outlined. The skull is modelled in soft strokes with a thin white edge. Where the blue head of December glowed from inside, this one is lit from the front, and the eyes look wet.
Compare with #38, in this room
Nifty Faces #94
A bird skull with a long beak, drawn in black, white, red and cyan strokes on dark brown, a brush of pale lines hanging from the jaw like a beard.
Spring Skulls
March 16 to April 25, 2022. Five heads: a box with an X eye, a chunky head with a heart for an eye, a head of blocks, a glossy bald head, and a skull with its jaw off.
Nifty Faces #107
A dark box head on purple, a red X in a round eye, a boxed eye, teeth below.
Nifty Faces #108
A chunky head on dark grey with a red heart in a box for an eye, a box of white teeth, and two more boxes of teeth at the bottom like feet, in confetti scribble.
Nifty Faces #112
A head built from stacked blocks on dark navy, with one eye in a tilted box and the other a cluster of rings, a long bar of white teeth at the bottom.
Nifty Faces #122
A glossy bald head on black, its skin a weave of colored scribble, two ringed eyes, and a mouth open on white teeth, one eye at the right lit white.
Nifty Faces #128
A glossy skull on pink with spiky hair, one huge yellow eye, and its jaw come off, lying below the teeth as a separate row. The skull is painted in gold and black with white highlights, and the teeth hang from the upper jaw in a row of long pegs. Two months after the skull with blue eyes, the modelled skull is back, and this time it has come apart. The last work in the room, from April 25, 2022.
Compare with #90, in this roomClosing
Look again at the hooded skull with the letters across its eyes, twenty-six strokes on black, and then at the glossy skull on pink with its jaw on the floor. One is nothing but line. The other is modelled, lit and broken. Both are skulls in the dark, and both make you look at the teeth.