Caroline McCarthy
Head / Broken Head, 2011
Diptych, Acrylic ink and pencil on paper;
Dims.: 100 x 130cms (each drawing)
Head / Broken Head is a series of large-scale ink drawings which appropriate the flexible drinking straw as a unit for constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing a series of heads. The same 12 straws are used to construct each head, their different colours and flexibility allowing for endless variation as the image moves back and forth between figuration and abstraction.
The simplicity of these drawings lies in contrast to the meticulous attention to detail with which its constituent parts have been rendered, each one having had the time devoted to it that would allow for thousands to be made on the production line.
There is a sense of fragility and emotional complexity as each portrait is in turn presented next to its shattered self - but also a reassurance in the head’s ability to reform and to reinvent itself over and over.
Related Works:
(or click ‘back’ in browser bar for previous page)