American artist Hilary Brace creates dramatic black and white charcoal drawings that seem immense and immeasurable. Created on small, postcard-sized canvases, the images have a photographic quality to them which allows viewers to instantly associate the places with realistic images of cloud-filled skies. However, Brace also complements that familiarity with a touch of the unexpected, as the forms swirl up and around in a storm of ominous movements.
Brace is known for this particular style of drawing, in which she covers Mylar with charcoal and then erases into the black dust to produce her cloudy formations. When the artist begins a piece, she does so without an exact plan and so the concepts emerge through a process of growing and expanding. She says, “When I compose an image I work without premeditation, beginning with only a vague suggestion, so the places I make often surprise me as they unfold in a series of unanticipated discoveries.” In these final results, viewers will find themselves instantly transported into an unknown, hauntingly entrancing abyss.
