the estranged eye: August 2009

This body of work explores the adult relationship with childhood. The highly rendered charcoal and graphite drawings feature children in ambiguous or otherwise disorderly spaces. No adults are present, and likewise little of their material culture. The spaces depicted have been altered by the children; transformed into “spaces of becoming.” These spaces are not physically different, but their use by children defies the logical order of adult designed spaces. The children play in caves, under bridges, and in derelict, abandoned places. These spaces have become playgrounds for the children, despite the fact that they might never have been intended to be such.

The narrative element of these drawings exists as a metaphor for the adult relationship to children and ultimately all intrapersonal relationships. The ambiguity and lack of translatability of these drawings in and of itself perpetuates the narrative’s potential. The objects of play in these drawings are either unrecognizable to the viewer or their designated use is undeterminable. These works depict private imaginative moments of children that are to be witnessed by the estranged adult eye.

In a larger sense, these drawings depict the essential human desire to transform and imbue existence with meaning, all the while acknowledging the difficulty of sharing a particular experience with others.