Artist Statement: Power of Graphite
Professor Cotton’s Studio work is illustrative in nature each piece telling a part of a story as if sitting on a page of a book.
The work stands as a record of pain and recovery. Emotions are time stamped in memory and replayed on paper. Each piece illustrates either the agony through visceral abstractions of grit and distress, or the rise from torment through more literal parables.
The tedious act of drawing infinite details helps me to illustrate the time it takes to overcome the memory stamped within. Each drawn piece calling upon an allegory to explain the events they describe. The use of color muted or non-existent as to allow for the darkness and contrast of the graphite and charcoal to take hold in the viewer; giving them a sense of ominous foreboding or an uneasiness to the unknown.
My work is meant to communicate clearly but not always an elaborate message. Through drawing and the laborious nature of providing such detail I am able to use more literal objects and subject matter to create parables of emotional events. Through this I can communicate agony, and the beauty that sometimes accompany it.
