REVIEWS, April 2008
Ann Diener at Bank
Too often we reduce the purpose of a drawing to a blueprint. It is a precursor to a painting or the preliminary idea for a sculpture. We associate this medium as something unfinished, something that still has room to grow and develop. Of late, many artists are stretching our imaginations to the possibilities of drawing, a skill that is unfortunately unsung with technological advancements. For the past few decades these contemporary artists have mastered the craft, elevating drawing to a level where it is as elegant or powerful as painting, sculpture, photography, or any other highly regarded art form.
Ann Diener proves in her newest collection of work at Bank Art that she doesn't need to further develop her transcendent drawings into painting or 3-dimensions. Instead, Diener creates works that feel fleshed out, complex, anything but preliminary. "Growth" boasts 6 large-scale graphite, ink, gouache, Prismacolor, and paper works (two of them over 4 feet high and 11 feet wide), and six smaller pieces composed with similar tools.
The expanding Field Panel #1 and Field Panel #2 at once command attention upon entrance to the gallery. These drawings find Diener's expressive style at its best. Always a present element in her work, the artist juxtaposes imagery of nature with that of industry, technology. Layers of busy circles upon structured, architectural lines and shapes spin the compositions into motion as leaves, feathers, and birds are blown through as if in a cyclone of shimmering graphite and silky black pen. It is as if the viewer is catching a glimpse of the scenery from a speeding vehicle. While drawings like these churn with dynamism, they manage to exhibit grace and beauty by keeping a purpose and strong focus. Like Pollock with pen and pencil, Diener is perfectly in control of her chaos, leading your eye into the negative spaces at the center of her nearly symmetrical loops and lines.
Stacked Field has all the impulsiveness of a doodle, but Diener heightens the drama with expert use of bold Prismacolor. Though not as grandiose in size as the aforementioned works, this piece is no less pulsating, with a more compact concentration of her contrasting figurative/non-objective imagery. In this composition, several black hole-type spirals draw you into the drawing on the left-hand side. Moving clockwise the work erupts into a web of blood cells, architectural skeletons, and sophisticated grids. This work exemplifies the duality of Diener's drawing "organically"; the naturalism of biological forms, and the energy and immediacy inherent in the drawing medium.
In Field Tracery #1 and #2, Diener is working on canvas over panel, in lieu of her usual paper backdrop. As a result, these works have a sleekness and polish to satisfy those who still hunger for the aesthetic of painting.
While the smaller drawings, Wire Study #1 through #6 might be necessary to show the breakdown of the larger, more complex works, they pale in comparison to the opulence that comes from Diener's style in epic scale. The viewer finds himself having to only imagine the explosive dichotomy of graceful nature and hard-edged industrialism at which these small works only begin to hint. They exist as only a detail of Diener's more accomplished works.
Diener at once displays a sketchbook sensibility (in the spontaneity of her lines) and seriousness. Her works do not beg to be held preciously behind glass, confined by a frame, or mounted ceremoniously over a piece of expensive furniture. They do not need these things as proof of their importance and intelligence. And they certainly don't need to be composed of oil paint or bronze to be taken seriously. Diener's drawings' greatest characteristic is their dichotomy. They are hard yet fluid, they are unpredictable yet wholly purposeful, they are the beginning and the conclusion.
- Ashley Tibbits
Ann Diener:Growth closed March 8 at Bank, Los Angeles
Ashley Tibbits is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles