Jonathan Lasker

From Drawing to Painting to Drawing offers the public an opportunity to get to know the work of American artist Jonathan Lasker. The parameters of art have expanded as developments in photography, video and multimedia have redefined the role of traditional fine art techniques. With the advent of new technology, and the tools it offers for artistic expression, there is renewed interest in the relationship between space, surface, and the expression inherent in line. In this exhibition the emphasis is on drawing. The starting point is drawing as an independent art form and its role in painting.

In his drawings and paintings, Jonathan Lasker gives new energy to abstraction, with line playing a significant role. One simply cannot consider Lasker’s drawings and paintings, or their aesthetic dimensions, without being affected by his use of line. Colour may give a piece its grandeur or make it come alive, but line will be a fundamental element in it. Not only does line define the various shapes, but it gives them their energy. Almost all of Jonathan Lasker’s work is characterised by biomorphic shapes, reminiscent of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Jonathan Lasker uses various drawing media, from charcoal to acrylic paint, from ballpoint pen to coloured pencils. In Lasker’s drawings, space and surface are of particular interest, as he combines and contrasts formal picture elements with existential questions. The absence of impasto in drawings inevitably creates a sense of space quite different to that created in a painting. According to Lasker, a thick layer of paint gives his paintings a depth which brings them closer to what we perceive in the real world. That is, the materiality of a painting appeals to our emotions and helps our perception.

Born in New Jersey in 1948, Jonathan Lasker studied in New York (School of Visual Arts) and in California (California Institute of the Arts) under Richard Artschwager and Susan Rothenberg. Lasker has previously shown paintings at the Pori Art Museum, in the 2002 exhibition Patterns: Between Object and Arabesque. The exhibition From Drawing to Painting to Drawing comes to Pori from Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik in Denmark.

Pressetext

Jonathan Lasker: From Drawing to Painting to Drawing
Kooperation: Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense