Exhibitions

CALEB GREGORY: FUNKY HIEROGLYPHICS

Sauvage Galerie / 1114B 3rd Ave. S. January 6, 2018 - January 31, 2018

Caleb Gregory

FUNKY HIEROGLYPHICS

A Solo Show of Work by Caleb Gregory At Sauvage Galerie

"The squiggles are drawn in a graph paper notebook. Graph paper helps me stay organized, and I can carry a notebook anywhere. The notebook pages are digitally scanned. Squiggles are cleaned of graph paper lines and drawings are organized in Photoshop. Pages of drawings are printed back onto paper using a Risograph.

Perhaps 'hieroglyphics' is a misnomer: unlike the Egyptian writers of old, I do not start with a set of ideas I wish to deliberately represent. While drawing, I discover squiggles that intuitively seem to bear a particular meaning. I continue using these squiggles in new contexts as a way to further articulate them.

For a viewer, the repetition of particular squiggles in new patterns facilitates the formation of an associative narrative as they study the drawings. Some squiggles suggest an explicit meaning while others are equivocal. This balance of suggestion and ambiguity engenders questions, prompting the viewer to investigate further. The squiggles are playful but precise and controlled. This is why they grab attention visually. The drawings they form are dense and reward inspection.

A viewer can read them like poetry, left-to-right. This is how they were written. Alternatively, a viewer can begin at any point, scan the print, discover the particular squiggles that excite them and follow these into a narrative. I do not prescribe a particular way of viewing them; all that is required is candid curiosity and patience."