…its failure reveals the exact element I want to express. In this sense I want to focus on drawing’s inherent nature of being intimate and immediate, unstable, alive. This quality of drawing, exposed through revealing the process, opens space for the viewer to experience an organic moment of tension, just like every moment in nature.

Clayton V. Colvin, “Popular Tactics”, 2014, acrylic, pigment, graphite, charcoal, and India ink on Arches hot press watercolor paper over panel. 16 x 20 in. © Clayton V. Colvin. Image courtesy of the artist and beta pictoris gallery / MAUS CONTEMPORARY.

spacer
.

A charcoal line, crumbly and raw, is easy to see without illusion.

When I was an undergrad, I would try to find demo tapes of bands, usually sold by street table vendors, or maybe a live album (usually referred to as a “European Release”). Some of the demo tapes were shit quality, but they usually had some edge that I craved.  The best one was a demo of the Pixies first album. It was even more Pixies than the produced release. The form was wonderfully awkward and plastic. I prefer the raw and untethered to the artificially perfect.

I don’t think there is a necessary distinction between drawing and painting. Neither is isolated. Both, always, are in flux with the world. I work between drawing and painting on purpose.  I am interested in feelings, flawed and visceral. I am fragile. I am amazed. I am thankful. It is dirty stuff. It is human. It plays sometimes at control and pixel perfection, and its failure reveals the exact element I want to express. In this sense I want to focus on drawing’s inherent nature of being intimate and immediate, unstable, alive. This quality of drawing, exposed through revealing the process, opens space for the viewer to experience an organic moment of tension, just like every moment in nature.

In a sports highlight clip there is usually one team who’s territory is unlocked. They are caught following the ball, and forgetting about the guy at the backdoor (el cabron) who coldly awaits the killer pass and dispatches the clinical finish.

…its failure reveals the exact element I want to express. In this sense I want to focus on drawing’s inherent nature of being intimate and immediate, unstable, alive. This quality of drawing, exposed through revealing the process, opens space for the viewer to experience an organic moment of tension, just like every moment in nature.

We empathize with both the predator and the prey. The polarization in the balance is what makes it a highlight of action. In the replay, repeatedly, we watch the team or individual player at the wrong end of the equation drift dumbly into error. My favorite moment in a highlight, and the moment I strive to capture in a painting, is the exact moment when the offense has built or lulled (drawn) the defense into a state of imbalance and we all realize the advantage. The defender is helpless and we know why. The defender is seduced, innocent, naive, caught dreaming. The space is exposed. We move into the space. There is something beautiful, tender, and cathartic in it. 

Clayton V. Colvin, Birmingham, Ala. May 2014

Clayton Colvin‘s recent exhibition, Put Down Your Stars, ran at Margaret Thatcher Projects in New York, 27 March – 26 April 2014. New and recent work by the artist is being presented by beta pictoris gallery / MAUS CONTEMPORARY, 8 – 11 May, at Pulse New York. Clayton Colvin lives and works in Birmingham, Ala.

Editor’s Recs:

Clayton Colvin in conversation with Brian Edmonds at Curating Contemporary, March 2014.

Clayton Colvin reviewed in Artforum (4/2014; registration required) and Art in America (9/2013).

Put Down Your Stars (together with Tegene Kunbi: Melting Pot) photoblogged at Paul Behnke‘s Structure and Imagery.