STEVEN HAMPTON
Drawing Now
For many artists and critics the prominence of line is what defines drawing. For others contemporary drawing is an anti-medium defining itself in opposition to both academic and modernist traditions. This polemic of craft versus conceptualization is essential to defining drawing. This hybrid quality to drawing is especially relevant in recent drawing practices including photographic and appropriated works, diagrammatic projects, drawing-as-painting, hyper-textual collage, and large scale drawing installations.
The collection of works in CSUN: Drawing Now considers interdisciplinary practices in light of ongoing developments in 21st century drawing. It does so by bringing together drawings by artists' representative of the varied majors in CSUN's art department (Painting, Drawing, Ceramics, Sculpture, Animation, Illustration, and Photography). The selection of works highlights the diversity of drawing as a practice across the spectrum of the visual arts, its strengths, usages, and interconnections.