towards a minor abstraction (2016-ongoing). Digital drawings with multidisciplinary translations.
towards a minor abstraction consists of a cumulative series of more than 150 small digital drawings created through Drawing Desk, a free app for touch-screen phone. Beginning as an exercise in gesture and composition, this project takes up drawing, my first aesthetic language, at a point in my practice where more established conceptual and theoretical forms of working failed me in the face of personal loss and political turmoil. The drawings developed over the past 10 months share linear, non-objective qualities, and palettes that attempt asymmetrical harmonies through the use of complimentary colours.
To pose the question of non-objective abstraction in the present brings up critical issues of translation for such work, both as a curatorial concern in the museum context and in terms of how critically- and contextually-minded artists may make use of such strategies in the present context, where visibility and identity have become not just tools for liberation, but also mechanisms of repression.
towards a minor abstraction (Translation 1). Performance lecture, 21 minutes. Performed as part of the Queer Political Theologies Symposium at the University of Toronto, organized by Ricky Varghese, David K. Seitz, and Fan Wu. Link to video documentation here.