Next exhibition: May 2010!
October 2008 exhibition: Aestivation
Magnolia Ghost, white gouache on dyed mitsumata paper, 2008
To view prints and drawings by Sarah Horowitz, please visit: Froelick Gallery artist page.
aestivation also estivation, n., (from Latin aestas, summer), also known as "summer sleep", is a state of dormancy somewhat similar to hibernation. It takes place during times of heat and dryness, the hot dry season, which is often but not inevitably the summer months. Certain air-breathing land snails, including species in the genera Helix, Cernuella, Helicella and Otala, commonly aestivate during periods of heat.
1. The act of spending or passing the summer.
2. Zoology- A state of dormancy or torpor during the summer.
3. Botany- The arrangement of flower parts in the bud.
Could there be a more accurate description of my work: ‘the arrangement of flower parts in the bud’? It is fitting as literal description, but metaphorically, as layers of complex intersecting lines, color, and process, it is almost more accurate. But my use of the word aestivation is greater than its obvious relevance, it describes my experience in my studio where I spend days on end working. My studio is a refuge from heat, stress, and busy-ness where I can concentrate and hibernate, my work becoming almost meditative. I am surrounded by my plants drying on the walls, smelling sweet with pollen and decay. The artichokes stand in vases around the room. The catalpa branches remind me of ink blown across the surface of paper with a straw- thick and thin with knobby joints, then spreading in random directions. Sunflowers bloom towards the sun or lean against each other as they wither and fade with the end of summer.
My drawings focus on complex organic forms as vehicles for exploring composition, line and mark. I observe the plants from life in an attempt to capture a sense of gesture and emotion. Usually I improvise with the natural form in front of me as I draw, twisting it, lengthening or shortening the stem, and adding on branch junctions, to find just the right angles and spaces on the page. A drawing is complete only when it begins to transcend itself by creating an emotional reaction in the viewer. I use the colors of the paper and ink to amplify the emotions within the drawing; white on cool dark blue creates a luminescent calmness unlike the heat and vibration between the vermillion and blue. The colors are produced of natural materials not unlike the subjects I draw- persimmon, oak, iron, soot. I base my aesthetic decisions on my intuition.
