Jenifer Kent

My work draws from a vocabulary of familiar marks which have evolved for me over many years: little lines, dots, small ovals and circles. I think the symmetry of much of my work might suggest a very mechanical approach using rulers and grids, but although I make preparatory sketches, my drawings are always done freehand. The marks often grow slowly from the center, moving outwards, evolving organically, each according to its own cadence, following an intuitive path, as I hope to draw the viewer in close. The freehand lines are important to me – I think they have more presence, more soul when they are a little wobbly, and a little bit imperfect. Each mark exists to me as evidence of a distinct and patient process, an incremental growth and an accumulation that requires a minute attention to detail. My process is slow, iterative and can be very meditative. Drawings take days and weeks of multiple sittings to reach completion.

My influences include many minimalist and process artists such as Agnes Martin, Sol Lewitt, Agnes Denes, Nasreen Mohammedi, Anne Truitt, Anni Albers… I am also inspired by the mark making in the drawings of Van Gogh and Hokusai, the sculpture of Ruth Asawa, and the installations of Robert Irwin for their sparseness and challenges to perception. But the land is my primary inspiration. Sometimes in ways more literal – in terms of form or pattern, but always in the way that the silence and beauty translate for me into marks on a surface. The quiet of place, the texture of wind and grass, the shape of rock, tree, plant or lichen, the surface of water – these things inform the marks that I draw. They may mirror microscopic or cosmic landscapes, zooming in to suggest cellular structures and then out again, into a sort of vast hyperspace. Because of the multitude of marks, these drawings are never still, and I seek to capture a moment in time, a suspension of sound or thought, a pause. I seek to find a quiet and stillness in this work that can be quite challenging to find in the current of a fast moving world, and my hope is that these drawings serve as a similar resting place and pause for my viewer, where one can land for a moment in the lines, experience a slow movement from center outward, and perhaps untangle the chaos of reality to slow down, mark time and be still.