Artist Statement
As I reflect on the group of works included in my exhibition, I realize they represent a range of emotions and thoughts that are articulated in the language of geometric elements emphasizing great figure/ground tension. For me, great figure/ground tension equals beauty. Beauty is life-giving. I need beauty. Haydn’s “Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major” is beyond thrilling to the soul, life-giving and it is about beauty. I want to create works only about beauty.
But many artists struggle and I too struggle…mainly with anxiety and doubts. By nature, artists are very connected to their emotions so the politics, the chaotic disruptions in lives all over the world, the war in Ukraine, the wars in many African and middle eastern countries, the hatred spewed towards others who don’t fill some mold of acceptance is disorienting and disheartening, destabilizing, and discouraging. During the coronavirus I could make no work. When I started again, I felt anxious and found that sequences were all that I could make and sequences were the only thing that helped subdue the heightened anxiety I felt and tried to quell, never totally. I do not want to make work that reflects the cruelty in life and the world today. I only want to create works about beauty.
SEQUENCES: Making repetitions calms me and this process is necessary to who I am.
RIFFS: Taking an idea and allowing it to become variations on a theme.
DRAWINGS: Actually, I believe all of my work is a form of drawing because I do cut into fabric thinking that I am actually drawing.
Nancy Crow will be giving a Gallery Talk at 7 p.m. July 19 at the Schweinfurth Art Center. The talk is free with Art Center admission and open to the public.
For more information, please see the Schweinfurth Art Center website: https://schweinfurthartcenter.org/nancy-crow-sequences-riffs-and-drawings/
