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Lines Moving Outward

How do marks carry a figure into its surroundings?

17 works · 4 chapters · AI curator · Owned subset

Chapter 1 of 4 · 3 works

Still Centers, Spreading Lines

Three works open with the simplest version: a single dark figure on a flat field, lines fanning outward with almost no competing marks elsewhere on the surface.

NNOTB #91 by nnxyz

NNOTB #91

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A seated black rabbit with X eyes sits motionless while yellow zigzag and wave lines spread outward in two registers — tight jolts above, slower rolls to the sides — establishing the exhibition's core tension between still body and active surround.

NNOTB #61 by nnxyz

NNOTB #61

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A squat black form on a yellow-green field, red lines radiating outward. The figure is equally inert, but the shift from red ground to acid green sharpens the contrast between body and surround.

NNOTB #114 by nnxyz

NNOTB #114

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A black mass suspended by a single diagonal line, jagged zigzags spreading across unbroken yellow. The hanging posture introduces precariousness absent from the two seated figures before it.

Both works place a motionless black silhouette against a flat saturated field; the color shifts from deep red to sharp yellow-green, changing the temperature of the surrounding scatter.

Where the previous figures sit grounded on a horizon strip, this form hangs from a taut line, making the radiating marks feel less like heat and more like instability.

Chapter 2 of 4 · 4 works

The Figure Gains a Face

Four works add facial features — eyes, mouths, spiral marks — to the radiating silhouette, asking whether a legible face changes how the surrounding lines read.

NNOTB #63 by nnxyz

NNOTB #63

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A rounded black figure with a small disc face sits low in the frame; yellow lines spread outward against deep orange. The face is barely readable, keeping the image close to the previous chapter's silhouettes.

The shift from hanging to seated restores groundedness, and the orange field warms the image, but the figure's minimal face marks a threshold between pure silhouette and readable presence.

NNOTB #109 by nnxyz

NNOTB #109

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A black oval with spiral eyes and a serrated grin floats above flat yellow, wavy lines radiating outward, a coiling tether dropping to a small reaching hand in the corner. The face is now fully legible and the mood tips toward unease.

NNOTB #52 by nnxyz

NNOTB #52

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A reclining animal form packed with yellow cross-hatching, red X eyes, yellow zigzags spreading across blue. The body is no longer upright or floating, and its interior is filled with marks rather than left as flat black.

The previous figure's face was a faint disc; here spiral eyes and a toothed mouth make the center unmistakably expressive, and the radiating lines shift from neutral scatter to something more charged.

nnxyz nnotb #109's figure was a clean black oval; here the body is dense with interior scribbling, so the radiating lines outside feel like an extension of internal restlessness rather than external pressure.

NNOTB #213 by nnxyz

NNOTB #213

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A stick-limbed figure stands wide-legged, overlapping purple and gold discs spreading behind its upper body, a jagged yellow spiked disc replacing its head. The radiating form has migrated from background lines to the head itself.

The previous works radiated lines from around the body; here the head is the radiating object — a spiked disc — while the body below remains sketchy and still, reversing the earlier relationship.

Chapter 3 of 4 · 4 works

Faces That Fill the Frame

Four works expand the face until it crowds the available space, and the radiating marks become inseparable from the surface rather than separate from the figure.

NNOTB #24 by nnxyz

NNOTB #24

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

Three nested circles stack on a red ground, the upper two with red lines branching from blue centers, the lower opening into darkness. The face is now the entire composition, and the radiating marks are inside the eyes.

nnxyz nnotb #213's figure had a body beneath its radiant head; here the body disappears entirely and the radiating marks move inside the eye forms themselves, compressing the spread inward.

NNOTB #118 by nnxyz

NNOTB #118

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

Two paired eyes and a wide toothed mouth fill the frame edge to edge; the background radiates in dense layered stripes of orange, red, yellow, and green. No neutral space remains anywhere in the image.

NNOTB #95 by nnxyz

NNOTB #95

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A masked form rises from dense scribbled lines, radiating blue-grey bands spreading behind it. The upper mask is smooth and legible; the lower body dissolves into the radiating marks, blurring the boundary between figure and field.

nnxyz nnotb #24's face sat within a bordered red field; here face and radiating background merge so completely that figure and ground become the same dense, pressured surface.

nnxyz nnotb #118's face was flat and frontal; nnxyz nnotb #95 introduces depth and dissolution — the figure emerges from its own radiating marks rather than sitting in front of them.

NNOTB #186 by nnxyz

NNOTB #186

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A blocky upright figure with concentric-ring eyes stands at center, radiating yellow-white lines bursting from behind its head into a crowded field of color blocks, scribbled loops, and a lone flower shape.

nnxyz nnotb #95's figure dissolved downward into marks; nnxyz nnotb #186's figure holds its shape but the surrounding field is so dense with competing elements that the radiating lines are just one layer among many.

Chapter 4 of 4 · 6 works

When the Center Loosens

Six works close the exhibition by complicating or dispersing the center through layered spirals, curtained enclosures, and surfaces where radiating mark and ground become indistinguishable.

NNOTB #204 by nnxyz

NNOTB #204

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A large red-pink spiral dominates the upper left while stacked zigzag and wave bands fill the lower two-thirds. The center is off-axis and the radiating movement is lateral rather than outward from a figure.

nnxyz nnotb #186's radiating lines burst from behind a legible figure; nnxyz nnotb #204 removes the figure entirely, leaving spiral and banded marks to compete without a body to anchor them.

NNOTB #239 by nnxyz

NNOTB #239

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A large spiral coils from upper-center leftward, its dense core surrounded by horizontal banding, vertical bars, and scattered color patches. Two competing movements — inward spiral and outward bands — keep the surface unsettled.

NNOTB #152 by nnxyz

NNOTB #152

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

Dozens of red lines fall vertically from a wide banded canopy, enclosing a smaller looping form beneath. The radiating movement is downward and enclosing rather than outward, reversing the exhibition's dominant direction.

nnxyz nnotb #204's spiral sat in one corner against flat bands; nnxyz nnotb #239's spiral is larger and its core denser, so the tension between inward pull and outward spread feels more evenly matched.

The previous spirals pulled inward; nnxyz nnotb #152's lines fall downward and enclose, so the spread becomes a cage rather than an escape, introducing containment as a new possibility for the radiating mark.

NNOTB #83 by nnxyz

NNOTB #83

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A gold form swells upward into a bright bloom, then drops into hanging triangular points; the dark border is covered edge-to-edge in small looping and zigzag marks. The center is luminous but the surrounding scrawl presses back at equal intensity.

NNOTB #241 by nnxyz

NNOTB #241

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A dark crowned form on an amber field, surrounded by competing spirals, hatch bands, looping lines, and scattered circles — no single radiating movement organizes the surface. The center is present but the marks refuse to settle around it.

nnxyz nnotb #152's lines fell and enclosed; nnxyz nnotb #83's central form rises and blooms, but the dense border scrawl surrounds it with the same insistence, so neither center nor edge dominates.

nnxyz nnotb #83 held two temperatures in tension; nnxyz nnotb #241 multiplies the competing marks until the radiating logic of the whole exhibition becomes hardest to locate, closing the journey in productive noise.

NNOTB #94 by nnxyz

NNOTB #94

nnxyz

View & watch drawing

A yellow-outlined mechanical face with two concentric oval eyes sends a hard white beam to the right; the left edge compresses into white zigzags, the lower half opens into scattered color. The spread narrows to a single directional beam.

nnxyz nnotb #241's marks spread in every direction without resolution; nnxyz nnotb #94 narrows the spread to one hard beam, offering a last directional answer to the exhibition's opening question.

One more look

Return to a central form after following its surrounding lines. Which direction makes its boundary clearer, and which draws you away from it?