drawn lace.

Wow, is all I can say about the unbelievably gorgeous "lace" drawings of artist Aric Obrosey.
Aric recreates the beauty and complexity of lace through graphite to honor and call back to a time were products were made by and and with care.

The result is simply gorgeous.


I cannot put his work into better words than this press release from 2006 so I will not try:

In this exhibition of new drawings, Aric Obrosey continues to mine the rich tradition of lacework, both for its formal qualities and as a symbol of a bygone economy wherein all consumer objects were laboriously created one by one. For the artist, the lace tradition parallels a personal devotion to the work of the hand as well as a love of detail, complexity and linear structure. His drawings repeat various gestures derived from lace, such as knots and twists, to form a modular network or background structure known as the "fond" in lace-making terms. From a distance, the meandering pencil lines appear to the viewer as interwoven threads of differing textures. Close inspection reveals that the texture of each thread is actually a finely detailed pattern, either abstract or representational. The content of the patterns suggest industry, mass production, handwork, obsolescence and technological advance. As the threads tangle, twist and come into contact with one another, multiple associations and interpretations are suggested regarding the interplay of culture, technology and handcraft.

To further his concept he often includes a mandala-like center of a recent mass produced object such as a cd, lp, or other object.

To read a review of his work by Roberta Smith go here.