The work of art is an ordered world of its own kind in which we are aware, at every point, of its becoming. Meyer Shapiro [i]
There is no way to make a drawing-there is only drawing. Richard Serra [ii]
Ram Samocha’s work has foregrounded drawing for a number of years - drawing of a very physical kind, prominently featuring a frenetic layering of lines that serves to trace a history of performative gestures over time. In fact he has also engaged quite literally in the act of drawing through physically demanding drawing performances.
Samocha has always freely experimented with a variety of materials, processes, media and forms of representation. In his latest body of work From Scratch, Samocha is exploring the medium of metalpoint, which may seem at first to be a surprising choice for an artist so focused on gesture. Using metal to inscribe lines is an ancient practice. However, for most of us, if we have any knowledge of it at all, it is likely as a reference to a mysterious process from the early Renaissance known as silverpoint, associated mostly with artists engaged in very fine-lined, highly-detailed, labour-intensive work such as Albrecht Dürer . The decision to use such an out-moded technique is reminiscent of Jasper Johns’ resuscitation of encaustic. While it might at first seem eccentric and contrary, the resultant work shows that the choice is firmly based on the artist’s sense of his primary material interests and requirements.
Using metalpoint slows down the act of drawing - the hectic pace of now is replaced by a slower tempo from another time. But every mark made by the metal is an uncompromising feature on the paper - an almost sculptural presence that can never be removed. In Samocha’s words - “There is no way back.” In some of the works, such as the Heavy Duty drawings (2011), the paper has buckled and heaved under the weight of accumulated metal markings, becoming a kind of contour map. In others, the repetitious scarring of the surface has resulted in the paper giving way in some parts, tearing and splitting like skin. The insistent materiality of the working process and the hardness of the materials seem more akin to sculpture than drawing, including the paper Samocha uses, which is manufactured from limestone dust.The metals employed in the work of From Scratch suggest an alchemist’s laboratory: silver, copper, bronze, gold. As the metals will continue to oxidize, changing colour in unpredictable ways over time, the finished drawing is only the beginning, not the end of the alchemical process. The notion of “finished” in the case of this work is provisional and once again the emphasis returns to the performative. It is as though the drawing itself takes up the performance at the point where the drawer has left off.
That drawing for Samocha is first and foremost a tactile, embodied experience links his work with graffiti art as gestural statement. Making a mark says “I am here”. Graffiti’s meshing of word and image into one indivisible sign also connects with Samocha’s long standing interest in orthography. Every line tells a story. The Cursive Hebrew Alphabet drawings (2010-11) were partially inspired by observing his daughter Alma‘s first attempts at writing through repetitious drawing of Hebrew and English letters. The accumulation of gesture and effort with metalpoint, in contrast to most drawing media, does not result in an increasing shift to darkness. The silverpoint lines obsessively tracing out the same shapes in Cursive Hebrew Alphabet remain stubbornly grey. This grey alphabet brings to mind Jasper Johns’ repeated use of alphabets and numbers (often grey), a connection made again with the numbers in Samocha’s most recent video Body Count (2011), in which he performs the drawing of 0 through 9 and 9 through 0.One of Samocha’s favourite art works is Rembrandt’s etching The Shell (1650), a copy of which he has on his studio wall. This small print is one of the very few still-life works Rembrandt ever did. In 1998, Samocha produced a painting based on The Shell, employing the flat, clearly- delineated, precise manner of his work at the time. The painting, titled Home, emphasizes the graphic shapes and pattern of the mollusc shell, omitting any reference to the gestural lines of the original. Now, in Samocha’s new metalpoint drawings, the vocabulary of Rembrandt’s etching- scratches and incisions on a copper plate- have found a home.
The expression “from scratch” was new to Samocha, something he learned in Canada. “From scratch” brings to mind both “starting from scratch and “made from scratch”, pertinent references to Samocha’s experiences of starting a new life in a new country as an immigrant and as well as to the births of his two daughters . From Scratch offers poignant meditations on time, identity and signification. Samocha has created a powerful synthesis of material, form and gesture in his ongoing, restless search for the point of balance between order and chaos, strength and vulnerability, effort and acceptance.[i] “Recent Abstract Art” in Selected Papers: Modern Art, 19th and 20th centuries (New York: George Braziller, 1978). P. 219
[ii] Richard Serra: Writings, Interviews (Chicago: the University of Chicago Press,1994). P. 51. Quoted in Afterimage: Drawing Through Process (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1999) P. 25
