Drawings of Choice

Brice Mardsen. Untitled. 16 x 20 in. Charcoal, pencil, colored pencil, and gouache on silkscreen on brown paper. 1965

Drawing has a long history as a practical as well as a theoretical tool in the artistic process. Despite its relatively subordinate role over the centuries, drawing to a certain degree always has been an independent medium . . . From the beginning of visual production, drawings were considered and valued as physical records of thoughts. Artists were the first to discover the multidimensional, fluctuating capacities of drawings, to realize the structural similarity of this medium with the relentless process of conceptualization and perception and to utilize it productively for their own purposes. Drawing has long been considered the best medium for transmuting abstract ideas into perceptible form, for translating and synthesizing the complexity of concepts and processes into something immediate and tangible. p.13 Drawings of Choice. Josef Helfstein