HEATHER LEWIS: DESKILLED DRAWING
Studio X
October 7 - December 11, 2011
Opening Reception: October 14, 6 pm - 8 pm

Since the Industrial Revolution, machines have completed manufacturing processes more cheaply and faster than skilled labor. “Deskilling” is the concept of mechanizing tasks to the extent that they require little human skill to accomplish them. Heather Lewis is interested in exploring this idea as it applies to fine art production. Deskilled Drawing presents light installations and non-traditional artworks that challenge us to expand our thinking about drawings and the ways we make them.

Sometimes Lewis uses objects as stencils or traces images from photographs and magazines, as she did to make both of the Catalog cut Mylar panels on view in this gallery and the drawings displayed on the first floor. She also uses an overhead projector to transmit images of common, everyday objects onto various surfaces. The artist employed this method to make the site-specific wall drawing outside this gallery, projecting the shadows of objects from a kitchen drawer and tracing them in paint.

Visitors to the exhibition are invited to generate their own projected drawings by arranging small objects on the overhead projector. Pay-per-view (reflections) is a drawing created by reflected light and controlled by electricity. The spectator activates a coin-operated meter that temporarily illuminates square mirror tiles arranged on the floor; the reflected light creates a pattern of geometric shapes and lines on the wall and makes a light drawing that lasts only as long as the purchased electricity. Utilizing humble objects and uncomplicated processes, Lewis invites the viewer to become an active participant in both the creation and enjoyment of these provocative works. 

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