As drawings, the "shields for humans" series works on a similar level as the "black shields" series does. Here I emphasize the frontality and mass of an imaginary shield-like form. The drawings confront a person as a massive, yet at the same time almost fragile form. Various layers of graphite powder are worked and incised by pencil and eraser-lines. As drawings they build up a tension that plays with the viewer's physicality.
The steel frames clearly set them as two-dimensional planes in the room. They ensure the freedom and the restrictions of a picture plane and toy with the aspect of a shield in regard to a person's body.
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Graphite on paper, each 59" x 85" (150 x 215 cm)
» Review "Being here: The Sculpture of Vanessa Paschakarnis" by Ray Cronin
April 2010 – Copyright Vanessa Paschakarnis
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