Fifty layer of paper, Graphite, Twelve hours. (Not pictured - Glass Urn holding pencil shavings from twelve hours of carving.) Photo credit Adam McGrath
Exercises for Calming
This body of work (as well as the accompanying Melancholia) involved separating this illness into various different “states”. These differing states are each represented by a different work, and they each correspond to a particular symptomatic effect of depression.
In order to better communicate these often intangible effects, I relied heavily upon both metaphor and material qualities.
Exercises for Calming was created by gluing together fifty layers of thick paper and then spending twelve hours carving back through said paper with graphite pencils, the hope being that the agressive, gestural quality of the marks would create a visceral reaction for the viewer. Not pictured is a clear glass urn I created, in order to hold all the powdered graphite and shavings from constantly resharpening my pencils.