The Arc of My Wrist

"I started drawing squares. They were never perfect. After each square I forgave myself for not making it perfect…and tried again."
Joan Edlis

'Nothing is quite what it seems to be.'

Apparently minimalist, Joan Edlis’ art alludes to human presence, reach, and scale. These aren’t barren geometrical puzzles, but subtle gatherings of overlooked beauty. The Size of my Fist consists of plant matter – from Linden trees, pines, roses, plane trees, and a tree of heaven. Each neat bundle was precisely a handful, though some have shrunk as they dried. Despite appearances Edlis collected the sheaves in cities not idylls.

Everything here has been found. The corrugated plastic squares that constitute one part of The Reach of My Arm were discarded spacers from between stacked paving slabs. Each bears peculiar distress marks individualising the squares.

The title refers to the act of stretching to collect the pieces, an act repeated in the second part of this work, the scattered playing cards scavenged from a Parisian street. These too bear imprints, this time of passers-by and the road’s texture.

At the centre of the exhibition is The Arc of My Wrist, a 100 metre roll of muslin – again found – that Edlis is painstakingly marking with an architectural pattern of squares. 

The process is carefully choreographed: she draws her squares in batches limited by the reach of her pen from the pivot of her hand. Then she shifts position and begins a new batch, the rhythms of the process leaving traces in the pattern.

The delicate beauty of this serial composition plays variations on a geometrical theme. No square is perfect. The artist begins a new batch of squares, gradually unrolling this as yet incomplete work. She reviews her progress, and begins again.

Nigel Warburton, 2005.
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/philos/nwpub.htm

Sculpture Installation Exploring the Implied Gesture
Govett Kerr Gallery
52 Hoxton Square, London N1 6PB
20 - 24 October 2005