I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing.
-Vincent van Gogh
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.
- Michelangelo Buonarroti
 

 

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Hilary Brace

Posted by Charley Parker at 5:22 pm

Hilary Brace
Somewhere between earth and sky, landscape and seascape, mountains and clouds, natural forms and imagined shapes, float the drawings of Hilary Brace.

Her richly toned, detailed charcoal drawings (she calls them “landscapes”) carry suggestions of twisted cloud towers, intimations of tornados and watersopouts, visions of waves and mountains and hints of mysterious tubes and tunnels.

Dark cloud-like forms collide with each other above textured ridges that could be mountains, waves or another layer of clouds. Light breaks through walls and layers, reflects off of some forms and shines translucently through others with angelic luminance.

Arches and domes, caves and breakers, rain, smoke or wisps of mist roil and tumble through her images, always blurring the lines between imagination and reality, natural forms and flights of fancy.

Brace consistently walks that line and refuses to give you solid ground to stand on, forcing your imagination to flap its own wings and make its own choices. The result is almost hypnotic.

Brace works in charcoal, that most plastic of drawing mediums, exploring and composing as the drawing is created. She draws on polyester film, starting with a completely darkened surface and pulling the forms out by subtraction rather than addition.

The drawings are small in scale, more or less postcard size, but their imaginative scope is as large as the sky. (Or is it the land, or the sea?)

Suggestion courtesy of Andrea O. Kaspryk.

Share or bookmark this post:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Mixx
  • Reddit
  • Sphinn
  • StumbleUpon
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Twitter

4 comments for Hilary Brace »

RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. Comment by Sasha
    Tuesday, September 25, 2007 @ 9:41 pm

    Wow! I was amazed when i saw this pic.

  2. Comment by cüneyt
    Wednesday, January 23, 2008 @ 1:53 pm

    very inspirational. this is exactly what I practising for everyday.

  3. Comment by Felton Payton
    Thursday, February 19, 2009 @ 5:15 pm

    This is the best picture ive ever seen in my life. You have so much talent its almost unreal.

  4. Comment by melody
    Saturday, May 2, 2009 @ 12:18 pm

    your my inspiration

Leave a comment

(required)

(required but not published)

 

For best results, click on article title first, then translate.

Please note that display ads for lines and colors are limited to art related topics and may not be animated.
Exhibitions
Drawing, Illustration and Comics
Updated 9/13/09
Engines of Enchantment: the machines and cartoons of Rowland Emett
29 July - 1 Nov, 2009
The Cartoon Museum, London, UK
Illustrating Her World: Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle
Aug 1, 2009 - Jan 3, 2010
Delaware Art Museum, DE
Intrepid and Inventive: Illustrations by Rockwell Kent
Sept 12 - Nov 19, 2009
Brandywine River Museum, DE
Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, 1500 - 1800
Oct 1, 2009 - Jan 31, 2010
National Gallery of Art, DC
Rococo and Revolution: Eighteenth-Century French Drawings
Oct 2, 2009 - Jan 3, 2010
Morgan Library and Museum, NY
Maxfield Parrish: Illustrated Letters
Oct 17, 2009 - Jan 17, 2010
Delaware Art Museum, DE
Fantasies and Fairy-Tales: Maxfield Parrish and the Art of the Print
Oct 31, 2009 - Jan 10, 2010
Delaware Art Museum, DE
Alice in Pictureland: Illustrations of Lewis Carroll's Classic Tales
Nov 27, 2009 - Jan 10, 2010
Brandywine River Museum, DE
The Drawings of Bronzino
Jan 20 - April 18, 2009
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY


Donate Life

The Gift of a Lifetime