Laurie Fendrich: Drawings From the South of France

Wednesday I was privy to an opening for a wonderful artist named Laurie Fendrich at Gary Snyder Project Space. For this series, she received a Brown Foundation fellowship and was off to the south of France to begin her endeavor. What she accomplished over the month was a series of drawings, Rayogram* like in appearance, but done all by hand and with black conte crayon no less. The dialog begins to be apparent after viewing several of the drawings together. The small, intimate drawings take on a life of their own with what appear to be repetitious characters that fade in and out of the dark and light compositions:





According the gallery director, she did one drawing per day, which after seeing the depth and detail of the work is pretty amazing. Along with the 32 drawings, the exhibition also included one of her paintings which used similar unique alien caricature forms, although this time they were in color. I found this quote about her work done a few years ago, “A salute to Russian Constructivism, a nod to Art Deco, a bow to 30’s American Modernism, more than a dash of loony cartoony pop culture. But the combos actually work, forming crisp compositions whose bright toylike colors, suave matings of geometric with biomorphic forms, and skilled painting give the work a decorous pizzazz.”

— Grace Glueck, The New York Times
January 17, 2003

Project Space

250 West 26th Street
4th Floor
New York, NY 10001
phone: 212 929 1351


*If you are unsure of what a Rayogram is, it is a series of photographs done by Man Ray using photo paper and the light projection machine. He placed various materials on the photo paper and exposed them to the light machine. He would then move them around, creating interesting light to dark ratios. Please find an example here: http://www2.kenyon.edu/artgallery/exhibitions/9899/douthat/manray.htm