Faces in the Tangle
Faces found in a tangle. The works in this room are drawn as dense, many-colored scribble, and the face comes out of it: a person with glasses, a man in a hat, a girl in a cap, a screaming head in a halo of white. Twenty-one works, from the second drawing in the series on October 27, 2021, to April 2022.
The scribble is not fill. It is the drawing. Hair, cheeks, beards and backgrounds are all the same looping line in different colors, and the features are the places where the line gets dense or changes color. Glasses are two loops. A mouth is a red knot with white inside it.
Watch how the tangle thins. In the first weeks the whole square is scribble. In February two faces are painted with the tangle only on top. By March the scribble has become hatching, and the faces snarl.
Likenesses in Scribble
Five works from October 27 to November 27, 2021. People with glasses and hats, and a face lost in magenta.
Nifty Faces #2
A face with rectangular glasses and a fanged grin, drawn entirely in scribble: yellow and red for the hair, green and blue for the cheeks, a red knot for the mouth with white teeth inside it. The glasses are two white loops joined by a bar. The second work in the series, from October 27, 2021. Where the first was a box, this is a person, and the way the line finds a likeness is the method of the whole room.
Nifty Faces #4
A face with round purple glasses and a small red mouth, its hair yellow and blue scribble, drawn in loops of every color on a pale ground.
Nifty Faces #5
A face in a storm of magenta line. Twenty-eight strokes make the whole drawing, but each stroke is long, looping across the square again and again, and the face is found where the line turns blue and green: two eyes, a nose, a closed mouth. The face does not stand out from the tangle. It is the tangle, looked at long enough.
Nifty Faces #7
A head on red with two square goggle eyes, a big grin of pointed white teeth, two ears, and orange spiky hair, drawn in green and blue scribble.
Nifty Faces #8
A screaming head in a halo of white bands. The face is green and teal scribble with two dark eyes, a nose and an open mouth with white teeth, and around it concentric bands of white and green run to the edges like ripples. The bands are the only calm thing in the picture. The series' first scream, from November 26, 2021.
Hair, Hats and Grins
November 27 to December 6, 2021. Eight heads in ten days: a man in a hat, a girl in a cap, white fur, blond scribble, confetti.
Nifty Faces #9
A grinning face in purple, orange and yellow scribble, with a brow of dense black loops and a small open mouth.
Nifty Faces #11
A man in a wide-brimmed hat, drawn in dark purple and yellow scribble so dense the face is almost solid, on a pale ground.
Nifty Faces #15
A spiky dark head on pink with X marks for eyes and a frown, drawn in green, brown and red scribble.
Nifty Faces #20
A girl in a yellow cap and round glasses, inside a frame of pink, yellow and cyan lines, her hair falling in pink and black scribble. The cap is drawn as a box of yellow loops with a brim. Her mouth is a small red mark. It is the only framed work in the room and the only one where the scribble is held inside an edge.
Nifty Faces #22
A face on purple with a mass of hair in yellow, pink and black scribble, two dark eyes looking out.
Nifty Faces #25
A grinning face covered in white fur, the hair and beard drawn in short white and lilac strokes standing out in every direction, with a wide grin of white teeth and small eyes. The ground is orange and yellow loops. The fur is the scribble turned into hair, and the grin is the widest in the room.
Nifty Faces #30
A head of blond scribble with two dark eyes and a mouth of white block teeth in a red box, on a ground of colored bands.
Nifty Faces #33
A head on maroon with big ears, two target eyes, and red lips drawn in white and yellow line over red scribble.
Nifty Faces #41
A face in confetti. Small dabs of orange, blue, pink and green cover the whole square, and a small face sits in the middle of them with two dark eyes and a red mouth. The dabs are not loops; each one is a short stroke, and there are more than a thousand of them. Its 1,020 recorded strokes are the most of any work in the Faces.
Screams and Snarls
December 6, 2021 to April 2022. Seven heads, spaced weeks apart. The scribble turns to hatching and the mouths open.
Nifty Faces #47
A screaming egg of a head on brown, drawn in blue and cyan scribble, its mouth a wide open oval with white teeth, ten days after the scream in the halo.
Compare with #8, in this room
Nifty Faces #86
A face on purple with long lashes, angry brows and a snarl, painted in yellow and brown with scribble over it. The eyes are white with green irises under thick black lashes. The mouth is open on a row of white teeth, the lip pulled up. Below the face the body is a dark mass of black and yellow hatching. The face is painted first and the scribble is drawn on top, a change from the earlier rooms where the scribble was the face.
Nifty Faces #87
A face on yellow with brown hair, blue eyes under dark lashes, and a snarl of white teeth, painted an hour after the purple one.
Nifty Faces #104
A profile on dark blue with closed eyes, the face in white and red scribble, the hair a mass of red and black loops.
Nifty Faces #110
A hatched head on orange with yellow X marks for eyes and a thin grin of white teeth, drawn in brown, green and black hatching.
Nifty Faces #111
A tall screaming face on pink and purple, its mouth open on two rows of white fangs, its eyes red rings, with a second face behind it at the right. The line is black and white with yellow and blue over it. A month after the snarl on purple, the mouth has opened all the way and the face has doubled.
Compare with #86, in this room
Nifty Faces #127
A bearded face on orange with square glasses and a grimace of white teeth, the beard drawn in green and white hatching.
Closing
In the magenta storm the scribble is everything and the face is barely there. On the purple snarl the face is painted and the scribble only sits on top. The line did the same work in both. It just stopped being the whole picture.