Alice Attie Near and Far

For Alice Attie, language and drawing are closely connected, as are writing and signs. She is fascinated by the multitude of possibilities of leaving a mark on a piece of paper. She adds forms, ciphers, and structures to the vocabulary of letters and numbers in order to visualize philosophical deliberations, trains of thought, and narratives. In her drawings, she appears to be testing a new system of signs that transcends the possibilities of language to reveal the connections between cognition and imagination. Attie’s works are often based on scientific and philosophical writings, the language of which she transforms into visual and poetic worlds. The artist, who lives in New York, has also published several books of poetry.

C19

Attie’s gouaches belong to her new ongoing series C19, which she began in spring in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. C19 refers not only to this new virus, but also to ideas associated with it, like crisis and contemplation.

The repetitive execution of the same gesture and thus the repetition of the same form in minimal variations is the defining aspect of this series of works. The small sheets of paper are entirely covered by almost identical strokes placed closely together, creating a rhythm and delicately calibrating color nuances of warm red, purple, and orange hues that structure the picture. Like a mantra, one stroke follows the next in a seemingly meditative process that is abruptly interrupted by the picture’s edges, which create a clearly distinguished and defined frame. Attie explores the potential of abstraction through her minimal markings, forming the individual small strokes into a pattern that expands into a single abstract form, ultimately filling the entire pictorial space.

Portraits of Ambiguity

With Portraits of Ambiguity, Attie has created a series of works that explore the human body and the ambiguity of its physical and emotional modes of expression. The title refers to the way these portraits are rendered: The facial features are blurred and only hinted at in a minimal way. Attie forms the shapeless, abstracted figures through a lively combination of expressive brushstrokes and color planes that bleed into each other. This creates a tension in which the figures, which are divorced from all context, seem to be caught in a strong dynamic movement, reflecting an inner emotional agitation and a mysterious ambiguity.

Tumbling Numbers

Alice Attie’s works are often based on texts, which she abstracts into structures, forms, and new systems of signification. In the ink drawing Tumbling Numbers, miniscule numbers take shape seemingly at random within the space, only to coalesce into a loosely formed sphere already sketched on the paper. The elementary form of the sphere is a recurring motif in Attie’s works – be it as a recognizable form, a fragment, or as a space left blank. The sphere seems to act as the key component here, although it is only a fragment – one that, for the artist, represents the core of all possibilities, despite being incomplete. Attie intends it as a philosophical element: By preventing something definite from being established, the fragment allows continuity.

Tumbling Numbers is a continuation of Attie’s series focusing on language and ciphers. On a formal level, the individual works of this series are reminiscent of planetary maps. For the artist, they contain all available means of language: All the potentialities of communication as we know them, all the ciphers of our language, are there, tumbling into any imaginable combinatory sense or nonsense.

Black Figures

What constitutes a body? How does it work, what story does it tell, and what can it endure? These are questions Attie addresses in her series Black Figures. The figures dance, bend, and distort, sometimes in a humorous, sometimes in an acrobatic way. They are always in motion, assuming poses involving many gestures. Their bodies are their instrument; their postures are reminiscent of dance improvisation, expressing a broad spectrum of human emotions, like grief, ecstasy, surprise, joy, and insecurity. At the same time, they are controlled in their sweeping and expressive gestures, almost never crossing the boundary defined by the edges of the picture.

The process of their creation, on the other hand, is based on chance. Attie tears a sheet of black paper into small pieces and reassembles them into a collage, which is how the figures acquire their curious habitus. This allows for several levels of interpreting inner emotions. It is this play with such possibilities and ambiguous perceptions which is so characteristic of Attie’s work.