Rachel Portesi
Statement
Nancy Storrow’s current installations of drawings on paper, are a diaristic rendering of her days surrounded by the natural environment in Vermont. She has been recording nature for years and documents this in her artwork. Simple elemental forms ground the drawings and expand their reference to the earth. The drawings are meditative abstractions that are a link to her inner landscape.
Variations in gesture, tone, and texture are underscored by placing multiple drawings together. In repetition and imitation, each work is the same, yet different - the installation invites expansive possibilities. Storrow has included raw woodblocks from a previous print series, noting that lines on the blocks, literal cuts in the wood, reflect her fascination with crumpled leaves, vines, tracings, as do her drawings.
Storrow has a love of odd, often overlooked, aspects of nature. Her work evokes transient elements in nature that are obscure, yet essential. We witness a visual story rooted in the natural world. The heart of the land is ever present in her drawings, balancing physical deterioration with regeneration.
“In my drawings I pay close attention to what I see, but I allow my hand to direct me Some I have drawn while barely looking at the paper. I stroke and rub the surface with pigment, then erase what I have done, and begin again. I bring together the touch or tone of the day with contour lines that cross and interrupt the surface. The drawings are reflections over the course of months. There is an essence, a hum of the world that I want to reflect in my artwork - the leaves quiver and flicker and murmur.”
2024