Drawings
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Golem, graphite and charcoal on paper, 76” x 50”, 2020
Hermits, graphite and charcoal on paper, 24” x 39”, 2020
Hunting, graphite and charcoal on paper, 24” x 39”, 2020
Trails/Passes, graphite and charcoal on paper, 13” x 58”, 2020
River Valley, graphite and charcoal on paper, 36” x 93”, 2019
Reconnaissance, graphite and charcoal on paper, 37” x 58”, 2019
Search, graphite on paper, 24” x 39”, 2018
Harvest, graphite on paper, 24” x 39”, 2018
Archive, graphite on paper, 22” x 30”, 2018
Oak, graphite on paper, 30” x 22 3/8”, 2018
Siege, graphite on paper, 38” x 50”, 2017
Colony, graphite on paper, 38” x 50”, 2017
Panorama, graphite and charcoal on paper, 46” x 84”, 2017
Document, graphite on paper, 12" x 93, 2018
Bezoar, graphite on paper, 50" x 50", 2016
Seascape(Match), charcoal on paper, 50" x 43", 2016
Leak2016, graphite on paper, 15" x 22 1/8", 2018
HiddenValley, graphite on paper, 38" x 50", 2016
Exhalations, graphite on paper, 13 7/8" x 29 3/4", 2018
Michèle Fenniak’s drawings begin in softness as an abstract impression of light and space, and take form through the accumulation of thousands of marks over time. Like sedimentary rock, the drawings gather weight and density as tiny fragments settle into place.
Recent works depict subjective mountain landscapes where roads, pathways, or the rhythms of landforms invite a journey into metaphorical spaces. Assertively synthetic, the drawings collide with the history of mountain symbolism: as place of exile, seat of knowledge, carrier of the sublime. The landscapes are informed by imagery that evokes a desire to imaginatively roam — maps, the Weltlandscaft of 16th century Flemish painting, pictorial games from the Victorian era onward, or current video games.
Scale relationships are particularly important. In large drawings, small landforms first read more abstractly, but resolve into meticulously described places. Tiny towns and buildings give specificity to imagined journeys. Minuscule modernist homes imply the presence of strangely affluent hermits; tanks anonymously, and likely fruitlessly, threaten enormous monoliths.
Banners and scrolls are characters in some works—a rumination on the power inherent in naming or depicting places. These banners are detached from their usual function, they are unmoored and without words. They roam the sky and landscape, sometimes threatening or frantic, sometimes trapped and impotent. In some works, they so desire autonomy that they try to become human.
Landscapes are sometimes expected to function as pleasing, idyllic escapes. These landscapes rarely offer places of refuge, instead they provoke an extended, journeying gaze into defamiliarized, metaphorical spaces.