Black Silhouettes
For ten weeks in the spring of 2022 the same formula held: one flat color, one black shape, and a ring of short wavy lines. Twenty-eight works came out of it, from a snarling cat on March 25 to a cat the size of a hill on June 2. What each creature is, and what it is doing, comes through the outline alone.
Inside the black there is almost nothing. A pair of spiral eyes, or two small X marks, and sometimes a row of jagged teeth. A spiral makes a cat look dizzy or wild. An X closes an eye for good, and the same X on a rabbit, a bee and a whole crowd of heads runs through the room like a signature.
The wavy lines are the other constant. They sit in the color around the figure, never touching it, and they make a still black shape hum. Watch them when a black horizon arrives under the creatures, when the figures turn hairy, and when, in the last days, the black is nearly all that is left.
Cats on a Ledge
The room begins with four cats. The first arrives in March, the other three in one week of April, and between them they set every rule the next ten weeks will follow.
NNOTB #49
A black cat arches over a scribbled yellow and white ground, its back one long diagonal across the square. The eyes are two red spirals in orange boxes, and the mouth is a white zigzag of teeth. Thick yellow zigzags fill the teal around it. In every later work the ground is a flat black band, or nothing at all. Here it is scribbled in color.
NNOTB #51
The same cat lies on a black ledge with its tail up, and nothing is drawn inside it but two yellow spirals and two white fangs.
NNOTB #52
One day later the same cat lies on the same ledge, facing the other way. Its body is filled with yellow scribble, so the black shows only at the edges, and the cat turns from a cut-out into something furred. Red crossed eyes and a red stitch of a mouth are the only marks on the fur. It is the one work in the room where the black shape is opened up from inside.
Compare with #51, in this room
NNOTB #53
Balanced on a black ball, a cat curls its tail over its head, with blue spiral eyes and a white saw-tooth grin.
Three Days in April
Six works in three days, April 25 to 27. The cat gives way to other creatures, a black horizon appears under them, and two are set inside a frame.
NNOTB #58
Two cats sit facing each other on a red ground, and between them a heart made of two black bars meets at its point. Both have yellow spiral eyes and a jagged yellow grin. Yellow lines fill the red in loose rows that follow the two bodies. It is the only pair in the room.
NNOTB #60
A creature of stacked black blocks sits on the horizon, yellow spiral eyes, jagged grin.
NNOTB #61
A black frog squats on the horizon under lime green, red wavy lines rising above it.
NNOTB #62
Inside a white frame, a black bear hugs its round belly in the corner of a yellow square, with no wavy lines at all.
NNOTB #63
A black figure with a topknot raises both arms, its round orange face spiral-eyed, framed in white.
NNOTB #64
No horizon under this one. A black bird with one yellow spiral eye and a zigzag beak floats on teal.
Scarecrows and a Witch
After three weeks away, the black turns hairy. Scarecrows are drawn in bristling strokes, grass grows along the horizon, and the X mark arrives for the eyes.
NNOTB #88
On a single pole, a scarecrow holds its arms out, drawn in scratchy strokes, with grass bristling along the black horizon and every wavy line in black on orange.
NNOTB #89
The scarecrow again, a day later, now standing in a field with a black cat beside a purple fence. Its face has two round yellow eyes and its body is a mass of hatched strokes. Yellow wavy marks are everywhere, inside the fence as well as around the figures. It is the most densely drawn work in the room.
Compare with #88, in this room
NNOTB #91
A rabbit sits upright on red with both ears straight up, its eyes two X marks and its mouth a small zigzag, a line down its chest like a seam.
NNOTB #92
Dancing on one leg, a round-headed figure bends its arms, X eyes, the wavy lines black again on orange.
NNOTB #96
A witch in a pointed hat stirs a cauldron from a step ladder, and the cauldron says SCAFFOLD ETH in scratchy pale letters. The witch is drawn like the scarecrows, in bristling strokes with one X for an eye. Black wavy lines fill the lime green. With 152 recorded strokes it is the most worked drawing in the room, and the only one with words in it.
NNOTB #98
A black rabbit sits facing out on pale blue, yellow spiral eyes, black wavy lines around.
Small Creatures
The last week of May brings the small things: a snail, a turtle, a bee, a balloon, a worm, a spider, a flower and a crowd. Each gets one shape, one color and its ring of lines.
NNOTB #101
Along the horizon crawls a snail with a yellow spiral shell and a tiny cat-like face.
NNOTB #103
A black turtle walks the horizon under teal, one round yellow eye and a small open mouth.
NNOTB #106
Over the horizon a bee with X eyes hovers, while a small black flower with spiral eyes looks up at it from the lower right.
NNOTB #109
On a long wavy string a balloon with spiral eyes and a jagged grin rises, and a black hand at the bottom corner lets it go.
NNOTB #112
Out of a bitten apple on a steep black slope rises a worm with X eyes, the lines around it black on green.
NNOTB #114
From the top edge a spider hangs on a thin thread, legs tucked around a round body, three small yellow marks for a face.
NNOTB #119
A crowd of black heads fills the bottom of a yellow square, every face a pair of X marks. The yellow sits inside a thick black border, so the square is a window and the crowd stands at its sill. Not one of them has an open eye.
NNOTB #122
A black flower with spiral eyes and a jagged grin leans on its stem, one petal fallen.
Last Days
The room ends on June 1 and 2 with four works that take the formula in four directions: a figure drawn in scribble, a child reaching up, a page of tiny figures with no color at all, and one last enormous cat.
NNOTB #126
Bent over two crates marked with sunbursts, a scribbled figure rests its hands on the lids, while a small snail crosses the pink at the bottom left.
NNOTB #130
A figure seen from behind reaches up to a small black heart that gives off sparks. The face is turned away, and all that shows of it is one small X on the cheek. The wavy lines, black now, stand up along the figure's back like hair.
NNOTB #132
Rows of tiny black figures tumble across a white page, each one scribbled in a few strokes, with a single red one beside the signature.
NNOTB #133
A cat the size of a hill crouches on a black slope, filling the square from edge to edge, and looks out with yellow spiral eyes and a stitched grin. Its tail rises off the top of the picture and comes back down in a hook. Pale blue lines mark the legs and the curve of the back, the same blue that outlined the first cat in March. Where the first cat snarled, this one sits.
Compare with #49, in this roomClosing
Go back to the first cat and the last. The one from March arches and bares its teeth on a scribbled ground. The one from June fills the whole square and sits still, with the same blue outline and the same spiral eyes. Between them the room tried the formula on twenty-six other creatures. Look again at the wavy lines around each one. They are what holds the room together.