Space

I love exploring art galleries in new cities, navigating the streets and peering into windows. Finding them is much easier with the addition of a smart phone, its infinite wisdom directing you when and where you should turn. The days of holding a paper map with a forlorn lost expression of a tourist is gone.

One of my favorite galleries that I discovered recently in Seattle was Gallery IMA. I was immediately drawn in by the intimate drawings on board that were found on their white walls. Drawings made up of multiple fine lines, meticulously drawn with an architects hand, placed over free-formed, watered-down oil washes.

This photo doesn't quite do the piece justice, as you have to peer close to admire the intricacies and small details that artist Paul Lorenz finds in the oil puddles and shapes that form. The space that he creates in these works though, the depth and the feeling of floating through loose but controlled environments, is astounding. It was hard to leave and pull myself away. I realize that the more I look at art, I am so attracted to work that is, at first glance, simple and about the process more than the product. The attributes of color, space, texture, and composition are more appealing to me than any narrative or recognizable form. It is about a feeling. 

Lorenz has made me want to return home and draw, return to the exploration of 2-d art.