Bodies, Signs and Scenes
When do surroundings become as prominent as the figures within them?
A solitary body leads into figures sharing space with signs, other bodies and increasingly prominent surroundings. Compare gesture with the marks that continue beyond a figure. Changes in scale, grouping and setting offer different ways into these scenes. The later works invite attention to light, water and open landscape as well as recognizable characters.
One Figure, Open Space
Three figures stand or stride in clear space. Each body is the primary subject, yet each is already wrapped, labeled, or accompanied by loose marks trailing nearby.
nnxyz #8
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View & watch drawingThe striding, coil-wrapped figure with scattered dots above it opens the gallery: a single body in clear teal space, already partly unraveling upward.
nnxyz nifty summer night ink
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View & watch drawingA clothed, spiked figure stands centered on black; the shirt lettering introduces text as part of the body's surface for the first time.
nnxyz nifty summer dance ink
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View & watch drawingArms flung wide and feet lifted, this figure suspends itself in a teal field crowded with music notes and repeated text, the body still legible but the surrounding marks now equally active.
nnxyz #8 strides on teal with loose dots above; nnxyz nifty summer night ink plants itself on black, replacing scattered marks with a glowing halo that clings closer to the form.
nnxyz nifty summer night ink's halo stays tight to the head; here the radiating marks — wavy lines, lettering, notes — spread across the whole field, loosening the figure's grip on the space.
Body as Label
Four works where the figure wears or carries its own identifying text or object. The label and the body occupy the same surface on equal terms.
nnxyz nifty summer ink
nnxyz
View & watch drawingA stick-limbed figure holds a tilted bottle while glasses and shirt announce the work's own context; the spilling bubble shapes pull the eye away from the body.
nnxyz nifty summer dance ink's text floats free around the figure; here text is printed on the body itself and the held object extends the figure's reach outward.
pizza pizza pizza day
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View & watch drawingPizza slices crown the head and repeat as a shirt emblem; the figure is so thoroughly marked by the food motif that it becomes the figure's identity rather than a detail.
nnxyz #66
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View & watch drawingAuction-house names and art-world labels crowd every margin around a blocky head; text and image compete for the same surface without either winning.
nnxyz nifty summer ink carries its label in hand; pizza pizza pizza day wears it on the head and chest simultaneously, collapsing the distance between figure and sign.
pizza pizza pizza day's labels are cartoonish and cheerful; nnxyz #66's handwritten tags carry a different charge, pressing against the figure as credential or critique rather than decoration.
nnxyz randoomdle with cap
nnxyz
View & watch drawingPink lettering sits where eyes would be, turning the face into a billboard; the crosshatched background crackles with competing marks that match the face's own texture.
nnxyz #66's text surrounds the figure from outside; here lettering replaces a facial feature entirely, and the background noise rises to meet the face's own density.
More Than One Figure
Works where two or more figures share the surface. Differences in size, proximity, and gesture produce relationships that range from announcement to collision.
pizza pizza pizza pizza day
nnxyz
View & watch drawingAn oversized head lunges toward a tiny sign-holding companion; the scale gap between them gives the scene an uneasy, lopsided weight.
nnxyz randoomdle with cap shows a single face overwhelmed by marks; pizza pizza pizza pizza day introduces a second, much smaller figure, making scale itself the subject.
pizza pizza day
nnxyz
View & watch drawingTwo face-forms — one small and downturned, one large and tooth-baring — share a warm yellow field with a wedge pressed between them, holding opposing moods in the same space.
nnxyz 300 nifties
nnxyz
View & watch drawingA large flat-black head and two small clustered figures, one thrusting a numbered card upward, stage an announcement across a spare white ground.
pizza pizza pizza pizza day's figures are separated by scale; pizza pizza day 's two faces are separated by mood, pressed into the same warm field without resolving their difference.
pizza pizza day 's faces share a dense, scribbled field; nnxyz 300 nifties strips the ground bare, making the scale contrast between large head and small figures starker and more deliberate.
nnxyz 100 nifties
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View & watch drawingThree rounded figures in green, blue, and pink stand side by side, each marked with a letter; their varied poses and expressions prevent the group from reading as a single unit.
nnxyz 200 nifties
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View & watch drawingFigures stack and overlap above a blazing light source; smaller forms dissolve into the glow below, so the crowd reads as accumulation fading toward light.
nnxyz 300 nifties's small figures cluster below a dominant head; nnxyz 100 nifties gives three figures equal size and equal ground, distributing attention evenly across the trio.
nnxyz 100 nifties's three figures stand distinct on grey; nnxyz 200 nifties multiplies and merges them, the radiating light pulling bodies toward dissolution rather than separation.
nnxyz #12
nnxyz
View & watch drawingThree figures share a pink field without clearly interacting; yellow dashes scatter across all of them, refusing to settle into background or foreground.
nnxyz 200 nifties's figures converge on a single light source; nnxyz #12's three hold their own spaces on a flat pink ground, the scattered dashes connecting them without implying relationship.
Figure Under Competing Marks
Works where the face or body is built from layered marks, text, and color until the image is densely packed. The figure remains locatable but no longer dominates.
nnxyz #35
nnxyz
View & watch drawingA grinning central figure, sad-faced hearts, blue teardrops, and a small capped figure to the right send competing signals that sit unresolved across the lavender field.
nnxyz #12's figures coexist without drama; nnxyz #35 loads the same multi-figure format with contradictory signals — bared teeth beside deflated hearts — that refuse to settle.
nnxyz #34
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View & watch drawingTwo figures press together at center, a red stroke cutting through the larger one; the image feels suspended mid-collision, neither resolved nor broken.
nnxyz #64
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View & watch drawingA goggle-eyed figure holds the center while handwritten text crowds every edge; the warm pink corner reads as a quieter margin against the surrounding noise.
nnxyz #35's figures are spread across the field; nnxyz #34 compresses two bodies into close contact, and the red diagonal stroke introduces a physical force the earlier work kept at bay.
nnxyz #34's pressure is physical, a stroke cutting through form; nnxyz #64's pressure is textual, words pressing against the figure from all sides without touching it.
nnxyz #27
nnxyz
View & watch drawingRectangular frames stack into a face built from competing symbols; red hand shapes at the lower corners pull outward while the dark ground compresses everything inward.
nnxyz #30
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View & watch drawingA glowing yellow-gold mass anchored by dense black lines is surrounded by four open-fingered forms reaching from multiple edges; the image feels like grasping or release rather than stillness.
nnxyz #64's text crowds the figure from outside; nnxyz #27 builds the face itself from competing frames and symbols, so the pressure is structural rather than surrounding.
nnxyz #27's face is built from rectangular frames; nnxyz #30 dissolves the face into a glowing mass, and the reaching hand-forms replace the earlier work's compressed geometry with outward reach.
nnxyz #6
nnxyz
View & watch drawingA tightly hatched rectangular structure on the right and a looser scatter of colored loops on the left hold the image in tension between containment and open drift; no figure is clearly present.
nnxyz #30's hand-forms reach outward from a central glow; nnxyz #6 removes the figure entirely, leaving only the contrast between a pressured bounded form and a wandering scatter of marks.
World Without Figure
Two works where the human form either merges with its surroundings or disappears entirely. The marks that described faces and bodies now describe water, creature, and open landscape.
nnxyz Smaug on the Water
nnxyz
View & watch drawingLuminous gold and cyan curves rise from wave-like marks on a dark blue field; creature and water are described by the same short angular strokes, so their boundary stays open.
nnxyz #6 holds tension between a bounded structure and loose marks; nnxyz Smaug on the Water carries that same tension into a subject where the boundary between form and surrounding element is equally difficult to fix.
nnxyz good morning nifty randoomdle
nnxyz
View & watch drawingLooping white contour lines trace every surface — vivid green foliage, pale blue-green water, pink-tinged clouds, and receding grey-green hills — giving the whole landscape a single restless texture. No figure is present; the same mark that elsewhere described a body here describes only light, water, and open sky.
nnxyz Smaug on the Water still offers a recognizable subject rising from dark water; nnxyz good morning nifty randoomdle replaces that dark ground with a fully lit, color-saturated landscape where the looping line-work now moves across cyan sky, pink clouds, and bright foliage without any focal form to anchor it.
One more look
Look back from the final scene to an earlier body. At which point did you begin following the surrounding space as closely as the figure?