Patterned Masks and Black Figures
Patterned masks, and then black figures. This room holds two things that look nothing alike and were drawn in the same two weeks of November 2022. First the masks: faces packed with pattern, hearts, hatching, spirals, crowns, drawn over paint until the square is full. Then the figures: flat black shapes on a bright ground, a girl in a dress, a creature on all fours, a man in the rain.
The two earliest works in the room are the two earliest in the whole series, from May 2022, and they are masks too, packed to the frame. The masks that follow in November turn into skulls and sun-faces, and then on November 10 the black figures arrive, three in one evening.
Watch the black. In the masks it is one color among many. In the figures it is the whole body, and everything else, the maze, the sun, the rain, is drawn around it.
Two from May
May 8 and 9, 2022. The first two Rawblocks works, drawn six months before the rest: two dense masks inside white frames.
Rawblocks #1
A mask packed with pattern inside a white frame: a ringed eye in a box at the left, a spiral eye in a box at the right, a mouth of white bars, and around them columns of beads, zigzags and hatching in red, yellow, blue and green. Nothing is empty. The first Rawblocks work, drawn May 8, 2022, with 387 recorded strokes, the most in the room.
Rawblocks #2
A second mask in a white frame, the next day, with a red target eye in a box, a gold eye in a leaf shape, and a wide mouth of white and red zigzag.
Masks and Skulls
October 30 to November 9, 2022. Ten masks: a crowned face with a red X eye, a green skull, two pink faces with one eye each, a half-sun skull, a skull in red rays, and three on pink.
Rawblocks #4
A mask with a crown of red spikes, a red X over one eye and a cross over the other, a snarl of white teeth, on stripes of yellow and teal.
Rawblocks #5
A round green skull with two ringed eyes, one red and one blue, a crown of purple capsules, and a wide grin of white teeth, drawn over olive.
Rawblocks #19
A face in profile on pink with one huge eye ringed in yellow and pink lashes, a red pupil, blue tubes hanging under it, and a small red mouth. The face is painted in dark red and drawn over in white and pink. A black shadow lies along the bottom. It is the first of a pair: the same face returns an hour later with blue hair.
Rawblocks #20
The same face an hour later, now with a crest of blue hair, a yellow flower in its mouth, and a yellow coat, on the same pink.
Compare with #19, in this room
Rawblocks #24
A skull split down the middle: the left half painted in soft yellow with a pale eye, the right half a gold sun-face with a spiral eye and a ring of yellow rays. A rope of gold runs down between them. The mouth is a grille of white teeth in a gold box. The ground is a haze of orange and purple discs. Two faces in one skull, one quiet and one burning.
Rawblocks #25
A skull mask in a field of red rays, drawn in white and blue line with a target eye crossed in red at the left and a spiral eye at the right, a grille of white teeth, and a crown of spikes. Bones cross below the jaw. The rays are short red strokes on dark grey, standing out from the skull on every side. Its 576 recorded strokes are the most of any mask in the room.
Rawblocks #29
A patterned mask on pink, drawn in loose loops of white, green, blue and yellow, with two ringed eyes and a mouth of white bars.
Rawblocks #30
A mask on pink with a red crown on a yellow head, a red spiral eye, a wheel eye, a rainbow mouth, and a ring of beads around the face.
Rawblocks #31
A round mask with a crest of orange spikes and a spiral eye stands on a stick body with two blue arms, on brown.
Black Figures
November 10 and 11, 2022. A dark scribbled head, then nine flat black figures in two days: a girl, a creature in a maze, a tube figure, a ghost in a frame, a man in the rain.
Rawblocks #32
A dark head on navy with cat ears, two red-rimmed eyes and a mouth of white teeth, drawn in colored scribble over black.
Rawblocks #33
A black figure with spiky hair and yellow legs bends over in a tangle of yellow, white and pink pipes on pink.
Rawblocks #34
A black figure on all fours in a maze of yellow pipes on green, its spiky head a ball with a red X eye and a grin, and three small black figures standing on its back. The big figure is one flat black shape with round feet. The maze is drawn in thick yellow strokes that fill every gap. The flat black figures begin here, and the small ones on its back are drawn the same way at a tenth of the size.
Rawblocks #35
A black tube figure with spiky hair and a red X face bends in a maze of blue pipes.
Rawblocks #36
A girl in a black dress with a white face and a ponytail stands in a teal frame, her hands white, a small red flower at her feet. The face is a white circle with two black eyes and an O mouth. The dress has a row of white buttons. Fifty-four strokes. A grey shadow falls behind her. It is the quietest figure in the room, and the only one with a flower.
Rawblocks #37
A black creature with yellow bands on its arms raises both hands in a teal frame, two white eyes with blue pupils, a grin, and a small black figure standing on its head.
Rawblocks #38
A face on red in loose black, blue and yellow line, a yellow X eye, a striped mouth.
Rawblocks #39
A black head in profile with spiky hair on olive, one white eye, and a white hand raised to its chin, inside a dark frame. Twenty-five strokes. The head is one black shape with a long shadow behind it, and the hand is white so it shows. It is the sparest work in the series.
Rawblocks #40
A patterned mask on pink with goggles, two ringed eyes inside them, a crown of white spikes, and a mouth of white teeth, drawn in yellow and black line.
Rawblocks #41
A black figure with a smiling X-eyed face and a red heart on its chest stands in blue rain under a yellow sun with a face, its arms out, two black hands rising at the bottom corners. Question marks float in clouds at the sides. It is drawn inside a cream frame. Where the girl in the teal frame stood still, this figure stands in weather, and the sun looks down at it with its own face.
Compare with #36, in this roomClosing
Six months separate the first mask, packed to its frame with beads and bars, from the black head in profile with its white hand, drawn in twenty-five strokes. The whole range of the series is between them: everything, and almost nothing.