There are places that have made such significant impact on me that I am compelled to make art about them in order to make them special. The reasons for that particular inspiration are numerous and multifaceted. In all of the active projects that are percolating, none of them are as elemental, personal and heartfelt as when I am in the process of drawing.

I like to work on distinct series of drawings. Once an idea is formed, I reflect on what I would like to express through a visual means in order to convey something significant, an act of beauty.

The Source series

H2O, whether in icy formation or flow state is literally everywhere, all around. Having experienced the tumult of equatorial rain forest, perfumed desert showers and urban centers, I have always known that it is vital to us. I have been fortunate to access a number of different cultures and seen how water takes central place in a real way, scientifically, politically and culturally. In this series of drawings, the challenge that I gave myself was to fuse together concept in the form of light and materiality. The symbolic nature, hopefully speaks for itself.

The Wrecked series

When I began constructing drawings about the landscape and climate, I always had an idea in the back of my mind, of trying to create a charcoal drawing that was one atom in thickness. It was the irony of making art about the destroyed landscape using various states of wood, i.e. paper, charcoal that caused me to question the relevance of this. It was dramatic, specifically when one day out of frustration and melancholy, I began to erase the piece that I was working on. When I returned to the studio, it was like the moment that fog clears to reveal a crystal clear vision, magical. And so it began.

The Velocity series

An important part of my studio portfolio contains drawings of climatic events, storms, tornadoes etc. Included are kinds of landscapes and atmospheres such as dark glades and riverbanks near where we live, pieces that I made over the last couple of years. My depiction of vistas and pictorial events are partly inspired by the Hudson River School and various European landscape artists who worked at the fringes and were viewed at the time as documentarians.

Metaphorically, I think that violent storms, such as the ones I draw, can represent rapid change. These storms are situated specifically in the American West. It is a place where landscape and culture have been dramatically altered in a short period of time.

#Drawing #KulvinderKaurDhew #Thoughts