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Different strokes: Mike Nudelman puts ballpoint pen to paper with 'Yet Again' at 5. Gallery
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Ballpoint pen is artist Mike Nudelman’s instrument of choice.
Different strokes: Mike Nudelman puts ballpoint pen to paper with 'Yet Again' at 5. Gallery
The Santa Fe-based artist has worked with ballpoint pen on paper over the last decade. His works will be featured in the show “Yet Again” opening Saturday, Feb. 1, and running through March 8 at Santa Fe’s 5. Gallery.
His last solo show, “And Yet” took place about five years ago at Fortnight Institute in New York City, which has since closed.
“Thematically, the work I’m showing now at 5 (Point) is definitely an extension of that same body of work,” he said. “I was trying to think of a title that would sort of speak to that relationship. And at the time, what drew me to the phrase ‘And Yet,’ was it was just a phrase I kept coming across, you know, different things I was reading. And it’s sort of an interesting connector of phrases where (it is) sort of out of context, it’s basically meaningless, and in context, it almost kind of negates itself.”
Nudelman chose “Yet Again” for the show title at 5. Gallery to continue the theme.
“‘Yet Again’ as a show title I think is a little bit analogous, where it’s almost like a self-negating phrase that feels a little almost paralyzed or out of time or somewhat contradictory,” he said. “I feel that sort of precarious situation of belief or disbelief really sort of speaks to the work in the show.”
Nudelman describes ballpoint pens as an “uncanny medium.”
“It’s a little low brow in a sense, but it’s something that can really, I think, be elevated for pretty dramatic effect,” he said. “There’s a certain iridescence you get with ballpoint pen, the way it sort of sits on top of the paper surface, and then the way I’ve been sort of drawing with these really transparent, overlapping hatch marks. I think it almost starts to resemble, kind of like pixels on a screen.”
He said the method he uses creates a layered texture.
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“This sort of goes back to the show title a little bit in this sort of interesting juxtaposition, almost contradiction of things, where the more layered those ballpoint pen strokes are, the more sort of deeply illusionistic the space of the drawings are,” he said. “Simultaneously, the more you’re building up the surface, the more it becomes this flat object.”
About a dozen of Nudelman’s works are part of “Yet Again.”
“All of the drawings are based on existing source imagery that I’m sort of finding out in the world, mostly in books,” he said.
Nudelman tries not to use images he finds online, where an endless amount of content can become an “overwhelming kind of swirl.”
“The limitation of finding things in print is definitely a big part of it,” he said. “And like I said, kind of collecting that material, and living with it in my studio.”
Some of the imagery was sourced from UFO photography from the 1970s, which Nudelman said has a strong subculture, especially in New Mexico.
“Finding these source images, in some cases, adjusting the cropping a little bit, sometimes kind of combining a few images in one image, and other times, just being pretty true and respectful to the source and not messing with it too much,” Nudelman said of his creative process. “If I’m making any adjustments there, it’s for compositional reasons or because I think a tweak in one way or the other will sort of enhance some of the leading interest that’s there already.”
