Drawing as a place, not a thing

From the early days of my sketchbook performances, to the present gallery size installations of huge works on paper, raw canvas and walls, I have always been in pursuit of a richer understanding of the location of the edge where volume meets the void. Over a career that has spanned nearly three decades as a veteran Chicago based artist, the underlining central theme of all my work has been the search for an honest marking process that informs my dedication to the act of drawing. Perception of place and space in my work is best described by Rael Jero Salley, who wrote in the catalog essay of my current show, " The pictures are therefore, puzzles of aspect and ratio. . . are enveloping, largescale tableaus-they invite perceptual paradox and end up referring to the very drama of vision itself."

Coupled with these formal concerns is the fact that I am a sixth generation West Virginian, where the loss of family, home and the destruction of the very mountains themselves by the curse of coal, can't help but influence my choices and flavor the work. With that said, my work has never been a work of illustrating a philosophy, or social commentary, or even a vehicle for protest, instead I search out and study the structure of grandeur of vast mountainous landscapes to match more closely the scale of my concerns in the study of place, space and the nature of vision. — Michael K. Paxton