I have had a longtime affair with natural forms. Several years ago I fell in love with the windblown leaves in the garden. I began drawing them - re-shaping, crumpling and distorting them.

Drawings in two recent series, Leaves and Seasonal Notations, are 11 inches square, reiterative and almost automatic. I am paying close attention to what I am seeing, but allowing my hand to direct me. Some I have drawn while barely looking at the paper. The variations in gesture, tone, and texture in each are underscored by placing these multiple drawings together.

The drawings in Leaves use contrasting color lines to develop pattern and vibration, while drawings for Seasonal Notations combine stroking and rubbing the surface with pigment, bringing together the touch or tone of the day with contour lines that cross and interrupt the surface. Both are daily meditations, reflections over the course of months.

In repetition and imitation, each work is different and also the same. Something new arises out of a lost line, a mistake, an inadvertent motion, or a forgotten color. Doing the same thing over and over is a strange and insistent journey. I have been recording nature for years and wanted to return to it and reflect it in my artwork.

There is an essence, a hum of the world, I can sense and hear. The land is ever present, the leaves quiver and flicker. In this persistence, there is an edge of physical deterioration balanced with regeneration and growth. And there is a bright core of toughness in the remnants.

Link to Nancy Storrow Resume

2023