Photo : Candida Richardson
Linda Karshan: Choreographic Aspect (short) 2015
Linda KARSHAN
Linda Karshan is an American artist born in 1947 who lives and works in New York and London.
Informed by her studies in psychology as well as humanist culture, according to which the universe is numerically ordered, and guided by what she calls her ‘inner choreography, Karshan produces abstract, monochrome performance engravings and drawings that are a direct reflection of the process by which they are created.
To speak or write about her work is therefore to describe this process, in which the movement of the artist's body plays a central role; a process inspired by her studies under Robert Reed, at Skidmore College, himself a former student and disciple of Josef Albers.
Since the mid-1990s, Karshan has developed a specific creative process that requires deep concentration but is only partially guided by her intellect : even before entering the studio, she begins to count, in repetitive, rhythmic sequences of varying length. This rhythm continues in the studio and takes hold of her body. Listening to her internal rhythm, the artist leans towards her drawing table, taking care not to touch it, her right arm stretched out in front of her, holding the graphite pencil in her fist and using her opposite leg as a balance, she draws the line that expresses her body's state of balance at that precise moment. The artist then turns the sheet of paper through 90 or 180 degrees, always listening to this internal rhythm that dictates the number of rotations of the sheet and the pressure exerted on the graphite stick.
Linda Karshan’s Walked Drawingsbegan in 2018 with a serendipitous moment of visual inspiration. They evolved into a technique of drawing with sound. (…) It is sound, more than anything else, that distinguishes the Walked Drawings from her works on paper. More than the heightened physicality of the visual element, or the novelty of the figure of the artist herself marking her lines in space, it was the echoes of her footsteps – changing from room to room, surface to surface, at times recalling the soft scratching of graphite on good thick paper and at others evoking a sacred choir – that intrigued Karshan and urged her practice onwards. The presence of the artist and her choreography allow each space to speak in its own individual voice.
In ‘Drawing with Sound’, by Mara Gerety, June 2023
AVAILABLE WORKS (Selection)
