CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/2/2015

Tomma Abts: Mainly Drawings

"At a time when many artists seem intent on endless production, as if part of the meaning of their work resides within supply and demand, or repetition, whether intentional or compulsive, Tomma Abts understands that art takes time," Bob Nickas writes in the Aspen Art Museum's new book of Abts' drawings. "This is one subject of her work, even if never directly rendered. What she does show us, what she very often outlines and delineates and shadows for added emphasis, is that a painting or a drawing is a representation of itself, of having been made. When we consider her works on paper, they compel us to ask: What does it mean to draw? What is a drawing? And to what in this world are we drawn? In the work of Tomma Abts, there is a purposeful and continuous circling around an activity, to create and regard an image that might otherwise elude being fixed, not so easily articulated yet pursued nonetheless, an image of the process of thought, the triangulation of the hand and the eye and the mind." Untitled (2012) is reproduced from Tomma Abts: Mainly Drawings.