Carmel Buckley

“Nature’s Stain,” Aisle Gallery, Cincinnati, OH. 2010

Two-person show

In this exhibition I showed new drawings from a series whose imagery derived from early-twentieth-century illustrations of fairy tales with their depictions of human transformation and enchanted objects. These works reinterpret the imagery and treatment of Harry Clarke’s illustrations for two books, The Fairy Tales of Perrault (1922) and Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1919). In the drawings I explored connections between my long-standing interests in drawing processes, patterning, and accumulation of marks and the frequently elaborate embellishments of these art deco illustrations.

The drawings encompassed a number of series made of black-and-white images along with colorful landscapes and figures. In these works the line is drawn, in places closely referencing a stitched line or embroidery. The color drawings have an aspect of coming in to being with empty spaces on the paper counterbalancing the drawn line. Also exhibited were a series of vortex drawings that explore the relationship of virtually the same image repeated in slightly different variations on the page.

A catalogue with essays by Matt Morris and Joel Fisher accompanied the exhibition.

The exhibition was reviewed by Alan Pocaro, Aeqai: “Nature’s Stain, Aisle Gallery.”