Line Figures and Crowds
Everything in this room is made of line. Figures are outlines, crowds are tangles, and where a body has color it is scribbled in, not painted. Twenty-three works, beginning with the first drawing in the whole collection on December 8, 2021, and ending with four from the start of June.
The lines change their job as the months go by. In the first week they pile up until a square is full: a crowd of toothy heads, a figure with wings, two black bodies edged in neon. In January they thin out, and a whole scene can be a few white strokes on purple. By June a figure is one black shape with a white edge, standing alone in a grey room.
Count the faces in each one. The room begins with more faces than you can count and ends with a single figure holding a bird.
The First Week
Six works from December 8 to 12, 2021, including the very first New Nifty on the Block. The square is packed every time.
NNOTB #1
The first work in the collection: a crowd of heads and raised limbs on cyan, drawn in red, blue, white and yellow scribble over black outline. Teeth are everywhere, in a skull at the top, a grinning head at the left, a jaw at the bottom edge. A hand with spread fingers reaches up at the upper left. Nothing is in front of anything else; the figures share one weave, and a face found in it is lost again as soon as the eye moves.
NNOTB #2
A green-faced figure with X eyes sits cross-legged in an orange body with two yellow wings spread behind it, on a ground of white, magenta and black strokes.
NNOTB #5
Two figures lean together on a pink and orange ground, one with yellow hair, both with round eyes and red mouths, and between them a large red heart. Two smaller hearts float at the sides. The bodies are drawn in green, yellow and white scribble with a thin white edge, and the big heart is outlined in white like a badge. It is the first drawing in the collection with a heart in it, and with 378 recorded strokes the most worked in this room.
NNOTB #6
Two black figures edged in white and pink stand against a dark ground of colored scribble, one with an X in its eye and the other with a Y, a hand of three pink fingers between them.
NNOTB #7
One big face: two round red eyes with green X marks, a blue square eye between them, a mouth of white teeth, and thick swirls of red, blue and yellow line around the edge.
NNOTB #8
An olive maze of organic shapes outlined in white, small creatures hidden in the gaps.
Rows and Crowds
Mid December. The figures line up. Seven robed figures in a row, three lumpy ones side by side, a row of ghosts over black grass.
NNOTB #10
A purple mass with four faces in it, each with a grin of white teeth and small yellow eyes, drawn in white line over an olive grid.
NNOTB #12
Seven tall figures stand in a row, their bodies long stripes of blue, green, pink and yellow, their round heads burning with orange and red scribble. Each face has two small eyes and a grin. The heads touch a band of fire along the top, so the row seems to stand under one burning roof. It is the first row of figures in the collection, and the tallest.
NNOTB #13
Three lumpy figures in orange and blue scribble stand side by side on black, each with yellow eyes and a wide grin of white teeth.
NNOTB #14
Six ghosts hang in a row under a pink sky, their long bodies drawn in thin blue, yellow and white lines that fall like rain, their faces screaming. Black grass stands up along the bottom in white outline. Three days after the row of seven burning heads, the row is back, but the fire has gone out: the heads are pale ovals with dark eyes and open mouths, and the bodies are see-through.
Compare with #12, in this roomTangles
January and February 2022. The lines loosen and multiply, and the figures are harder to find.
NNOTB #19
A tangle of blue, orange and black line over olive and red, with two grinning heads at the top corners and a white line running around the edge like a frame.
NNOTB #22
A group of figures drawn in white, green and orange line on purple, their arms raised. One at the center has a dark face and both hands up. Twenty-nine recorded strokes make the whole drawing, and nothing is filled in; the purple shows through every body. It is the sparest crowd in the room, and the first where the line is nearly all that there is.
NNOTB #23
A dark tangle of white, yellow and blue line over grey and olive, a horned shape at the center.
NNOTB #25
A figure hangs upside down behind five dark red bars on a red ground, its skull at the bottom with teeth showing, its legs crossed at the top.
NNOTB #35
A figure in blue, orange and green scribble sits in a chair at a window, on pink, with a second small figure standing on the sill at the upper left.
Spring Characters
One week in March. Four drawings that are each a scene or a character, with the line now doing the describing.
NNOTB #42
A cartoon scene on teal and pink: three smiling faces in a box of yellow dots, a round green tree with a face, a yellow snail with antennae, and pink clouds along the top.
NNOTB #43
A group of figures in white and yellow line on orange, a grinning monkey at the left and four others with round heads, over a ground of colored bars.
NNOTB #45
A figure with square glasses and a wide grin crosses its arms, drawn in black, white and green hatching over an orange ground, spikes of hair standing up.
NNOTB #46
A figure with a huge round head dances with one arm up and one out, drawn in red, white and blue line on dark teal, its face a swirl with a small grin.
Four from Early Summer
After nine weeks, four works from May 30 to June 3. A crowd of yellow characters, then two figures alone in grey rooms, then a pair with red heads.
NNOTB #117
A crowd of yellow characters with spiky hair on pale blue, the one in front wearing sunglasses and a white tee that says NIFTY INK, pale faces floating behind them.
NNOTB #121
A black figure in a suit stands in a grey room, drawn with a thin white edge, its head stretched sideways like a balloon with two X eyes on it. A single yellow flower grows at the lower right. Thirty recorded strokes. In December the black figures were edged in neon and surrounded by scribble; here the same black body stands in nothing at all, and the room is empty except for the flower.
Compare with #6, in this room
NNOTB #129
A tall black figure with a white edge stands at the right of a grey room and holds out its arm, and on its hand sits a small purple bird with a yellow beak. The figure's face has two spiral eyes and a row of teeth. A darker square is drawn on the wall behind it. The bird is the one colored thing in the picture, and the whole arm is drawn to carry it.
NNOTB #136
Two figures with red heads and black hair stand on a yellow ground ruled with white lines, a red heart between them and X marks on their faces, six months after the hearts of December.
Compare with #5, in this roomClosing
Go back to the first work and then to the figure with the bird. Both are made of line. One has more faces than you can count and fills the square to the corners; the other has one face, one arm and one small bird, and most of the square is empty wall. The room is the distance between them.