Clean Lines, Flat Color
Sparer faces on flat color. The twenty works in this room are drawn with less: a cartoon head in a few strokes, a mask of beads and petals, a diagram of a face in colored line with the ground showing through. Most are from the first four months of 2022.
The line does different things here. On some works it is a cartoon outline, thick and black, with a flat color inside. On others it is a diagram, drawing each part of the face as a shape and leaving the rest to the ground. And on one, the grey face with glasses, it is eight loops and nothing else.
The ground here is a color: lime, orange, yellow, teal, grey. In the earlier rooms it is filled or scribbled. Here the drawing sits on it like a sticker.
Cartoon Heads
December 2021 to February 2022. A scribble mask on white, then a run of cartoon heads: goggle eyes on lime, a black head on red, a face with a peace sign.
Nifty Faces #34
An oval mask on white in cyan, pink and green scribble, with two eyes looking up, red lips, and a grin of white teeth, drawn on December 3, 2021.
Nifty Faces #64
A yellow-green face on lime, hatched in yellow and blue, with two goggle eyes in white boxes under a dark brow and a row of white teeth hanging from the chin. The face is a cartoon: a thick outline, a flat color, two boxes for eyes. The teeth hang below the jaw as a row of white pegs, like the pale head in the painted room, but drawn in line. The cartoon run begins here.
Nifty Faces #68
A grey mask inside a ring of yellow dots, with two white-dot eyes in dark boxes, a row of pink dots on the brow, and a mouth drawn as a grate of dark bars. Around the yellow dots, rings of grey scallops run to the edges like the rim of a shield. The mask is drawn in soft grey and teal with thin orange line, and it is the most ordered drawing in the room: every mark is a dot, a ring or a bar.
Nifty Faces #77
A black cartoon head on red, with two white eye boxes and small pupils, a red nose, a wide grin of white teeth, and white marks at the corners like motion lines.
Nifty Faces #81
A mask head on yellow filled with colored scribble, two white slots for eyes with red slits inside, and a grimace of white teeth in a red mouth.
Nifty Faces #82
A black head and shoulders on pink and purple, with a yellow X in one eye, an orange X in the other, small white fangs, and a black hand raised at the right in a peace sign. The figure is one flat black shape outlined in cyan, and the X marks are the only color on it. Seventy-four strokes. It is the one work in the room with a gesture.
Nifty Faces #83
Dripping brown and black blocks on peach, edged in white, a small horned creature with an X eye below.
Masks and Emblems
February 19 to March 6, 2022. A skull with a crown for an eye, an owl, a gold blob with star eyes, a skull in profile, a sun of petals and beads, and an angular head in a haze.
Nifty Faces #89
A cartoon skull in white line under cyan rays, with a yellow crown in a box for one eye and a window of red grid for the other, a grille of white teeth and lime fingers at the side.
Nifty Faces #93
An owl head on orange with pointed ears, two green ringed eyes crossed with red, and a grille of white bars for a mouth, drawn in black, blue and yellow hatching.
Nifty Faces #95
A gold blob of a head curved like a banana on green diagonal stripes, with two red star eyes and a grin of white fangs.
Nifty Faces #98
A skull in profile on teal, drawn in white and black line, with a sunflower for an eye, a crest of yellow loops, and a grid of thin lines over the whole square.
Nifty Faces #102
A sun of a mask on dark green: a round face ringed with yellow petals, each with a dot, and a row of red spikes along the top like a crown. One eye is a white dot in a dark socket, the other a ring with a white center. The mouth is white teeth in a dark oval. Beads of blue, pink and yellow run around the face. With 347 recorded strokes it is the most worked drawing in the room, and the only one with every part in its place.
Nifty Faces #105
An angular head on a neck, drawn in black, white and blue line over a haze of soft gold and brown discs, its face a few straight strokes.
Line Diagrams
March 24 to April 16, 2022. Seven faces drawn as diagrams, from eight grey loops to a machine of rings and teeth on teal.
Nifty Faces #113
A face in eight grey loops on grey: two circles for glasses, a curl for a nose, a spiral for a mouth, and a cluster of pink and orange bubbles for hair. Fifty-eight strokes, each one a quick mark, make the sparest drawing in the whole collection. Nothing is filled and nothing is scribbled. It is the sparest face in the Faces.
Nifty Faces #114
A head of dark red scribble on grey with two yellow X eyes, a blue bar falling from the face like a tear, and an orange band across the top.
Nifty Faces #115
A flat face on yellow, striped in blue, green and orange, with two pink X marks for eyes, four small dots across the brow, and a thick white outline with rays. At the lower right a small red face on a stick looks on with its own X eyes. The stripes run down the face and drip at the chin. The outline is drawn with short strokes standing out from it like a child's sun.
Nifty Faces #118
A face on navy drawn in blue, pink and yellow line: a ringed eye in a box, a box with an X, a yellow crest, and a long white zigzag of teeth across the lower face.
Nifty Faces #119
A face on olive in white, orange and blue line, with a ringed eye and a spiky eye, two rows of hanging teeth, and a chain of white teeth across the bottom.
Nifty Faces #120
Blocks of colored line on teal, a bar of white teeth at the bottom, a pink chain down the right.
Nifty Faces #123
A face on teal with two eyes like propellers in rings, a red ball for a nose, a bar of white teeth in a red box, and a crown of yellow and blue ovals. Everything is drawn in line, and every part is a separate shape: a ring, a box, a ball, a bar. Three weeks after the face in eight grey loops, this is the diagram with all its parts filled in. The last work in the room, from April 16, 2022.
Compare with #113, in this roomClosing
Look again at the face in eight grey loops, and then at the face of propellers and teeth on teal. Both are line on a flat ground. One leaves almost everything out. The other draws every part and still leaves the ground showing. That is the range of this room.