Video footage of Pay a Visit, a twelve-foot long metalpoint, shot at the opening of Ram Samocha’s solo exhibition, No Way Back. Visit the gallery to contribute to the genesis of this piece, and try your hand at drawing in metalpoint on rock paper while No Way Back in on view from Sept 13 to Oct 14, 2012. This work will continue to evolve as people add new lines, until 5 pm, Sunday October 14th, when it will be considered complete.
From Scratch
Ram Samocha
The work of art is an ordered world of its own kind in which we are aware, at every
point, of its becoming. Meyer Shapiro*
There is no way to make a drawing—there is only drawing. Richard Serra**
Ram Samocha’s work has foregrounded drawing for a number of years—drawing of a very physical kind, prominently featuring a frenetic layering of lines that serves to trace a history of performative gestures over time. In fact he has also engaged quite literally in the act of drawing through physically demanding drawing performances.
Samocha has always freely experimented with a variety of materials, processes, media and forms of representation. In his latest body of work From Scratch, Samocha is exploring the medium of metalpoint, which may seem at first to be a surprising choice for an artist so focused on gesture. Using metal to inscribe lines is an ancient practice. However, for most of us, if we have any knowledge of it at all, it is likely as a reference to a mysterious process from the early Renaissance known as silverpoint, associated mostly with artists engaged in very fine-lined, highly-detailed, labour-intensive work such as Albrecht Dürer . The decision to use such an out-moded technique is reminiscent of Jasper Johns’ resuscitation of encaustic. While it might at first seem eccentric and contrary, the resultant work shows that the choice is firmly based on the artist’s sense of his primary material interests and requirements. (more…)
Ram Samocha, Criss Cross 1, 2011
Ram Samocha, Criss Cross 2, 2011
Both images are drawn in vibrant crayon on a stretched, black painted canvas measuring 53 x 37″. Enjoy!
Please click on the article to view it full scale.
Ram Samocha’s solo show has been extended through October 31st. Having opened to thousands of visitors during Nuit Blanche, we can expect a similarly carnivalesque feel for its closing night on Halloween.
For a sneak peak of Ram Samocha’s upcoming show the restless line, visit the gallery to view Opens Ends, 2008, an animated exploration of Samocha’s process and product featuring music by Kevin Hogg.
The restless line opens on September 30th. Join us for a reception and five hours of live performance on the night of Nuit Blache, October 2nd, 2010, 7pm to midnight.
The Julie M. Gallery is excited to announce our upcoming solo, The Restless Line, an exhibition of recent drawings by Ram Samocha.
Please join us between 7pm and 11:30pm on the evening of Nuit Blanche for a reception and live performance from Ram Samocha. “Peace Talks” will be a test of endurance as Samocha tackles multiple canvases with exhilarating purpose and speed, stretching the limits of his anthropometric, gestural style.
In 1999 Samocha spearheaded the germinal group show “Explosive Drawing” at the Hamumheh Gallery in Tel Aviv, Israel, blurring the line between artist and curator. His curatorial essay for this collection of contemporary Israeli drawings is intrinsic to the comprehension of Samocha’s performative art practice today. “Drawing,” Samocha wrote, is “that which transpires between two points.” This statement is deceiving it its simplicity, for the two points to which he refers manifest in rich plurality.
Samocha simultaneously addresses to two literal points—which are gathered into dialogue by the drawn line—as well as the polarities of creator and receiver, the artist’s studio and the gallery, immediacy and permanence, autonomous action and performance, etc…
Since pinpointing both what drawing is and the many realms it balloons to encompass, Samocha has crafted an artistic practice that preys upon the fractal tensions between his “points”. In the physically taxing public performance of drawing, Samocha grabs ahold of each point and attempts to muscle the two ever closer together. In spite of inherent tensions, he gathers these compressed energies into a coiled spring that finds release on black unstretched canvas.
As the performance develops, what began as a tabula rasa explodes into a myriad accumulation of terse, waxy pigmented lines that scintillate with the dynamism of fireworks. Samocha’s staccato gestures layer rapidly, sedimenting into rhythms of colour and bold imagistic compositions. University of Waterloo Professor Doug Kirton writes, “The images burst from their dark grounds and emit a shimmering ineffably quality of light that draws the viewer closer, into intimate contact with the surface” (Foreword to No Peace, 2009).
Accompanying The Restless Line is a critical essay by emerging curator Robin Selk, and an artist’s catalogue authored by Ram Samocha. Samocha has shown extensively in Canada and Israel, as well as in Mexico and the Netherlands.
RAM SAMOCHA: THE RESTLESS LINE
On view from Sept 30 to Oct 17.
Nuit Blanche reception and live performance of “PEACE TALKS”, 7 to 11:30pm, Saturday, October 2nd.
Julie M. Gallery for Contemporary Art 