Bill Abright

The twist of an individual’s imagination is one trait that accounts for our different perceptions of reality. As a child I would fall asleep seeing faces in the woodgrain wallpaper of my bedroom. Throughout my education artists who were unique in their approach to creating unusual and somewhat dark work inspired me. From the writings of Edger Allen Poe to early monster movies, I have always been interested in the things of Art and life that are mysterious and unusual. Heironymous Bosch’s and Giuseppi Archemboldo’s bizarre paintings, Leonardo Da Vinci’s grotesque faces and the bold expressions of Francisco Goya make it clear to me that “Art” does not have to be tame stuff. Later, I was attracted to the surrealists for their pulsing atmospheric landscapes and to Francis Bacon, for his gutsy emotionally twisted portraits. I became interested in psychology, the Rorschach inkblot test, caves, and Mauritz Escher’s reversals of space and form. For the last 30 years, I have been teaching Art and producing ceramic sculpture in an abstracted figurative style. As a respite from my clay work, I have returned to my roots in drawing.

In this series of drawings I am experimenting with my tendencies to see imagery in random patterns while exploring the depths of my own imagination. I begin with a rubbing from the wood grain of my studio floor, then install it on my easel and start to develop any images that present themselves. I want each new piece to represent a discovery, a personal journey to make the unknown known. It is a solitary game. I work alone in my studio. The formal aspects are of manipulating space, pushing and pulling with light and dark, sharp edge and diffusion. To play this game honestly is to accept the images that emerge. The process allows my internal reaction to what is going on in my world find it’s way onto the paper. I begin to recognize the characters that take form and their similarities to people in my life. The internal issues of family relationships, my professional challenges of teaching Art and making Art, and my struggle to accept and reconcile my role in a world that is often full of tragedy, despair and suffering. The graphite stick and paper become the conduit for my need to express and my necessity to extract