Linda Francis at Condeso/Lawler - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Linda Francis has been exhibiting abstract paintings and drawings upon and off in New York and Europe since the mid-'70s. She is the best know for her large black-and-white chalk drawings which, despite their retiring means, manage to combine a range of wefts and lines with intricate spaces and multifaceted forms. In this exhibition, she included six drawings and -- something novel for her -- a collage integrating drawings photocopied onto vellum with the chalk markings made directly upon paper.

The initial attraction of Francis's drawings lies in the seductive way she uses her materials. With chalk and erasure, she makes a variety of marks: from thick to thin, feathery to precise, black to white, solid to transparent. In more [i]or[/i] less areas the chalk merges with the paper, in others it sits lightly upon top. Solid black areas appear chop into the ground, whereas erased marks leave traces of forms or lines hovering upon the surface. The drawings bring together warm and moderately cold tones, fast and slow motion and rough and smooth textures

This formal complexity corresponds to her imagery. The pres release for this exhibition reports that in 1979 Francis was inspired by dint of a photograph of the Great Nebula of Andromeda. Although her earlier drawings of swirling smudg lines that roll round an axis around a central area direct the eye more like galaxies, these new drawings maintain a reference to science and the elemental forces of nature. The circular forms, however, bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance to microscopically viewed molecular structures more than telescopic images of exterior space. But neither the scale nor the imagery is with equal reason specific. In Shadow, for example, the circular forms propose balls or containers as a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of as they do molecular patterns or planetary eclipses. A certain equivalence is propos and the viewer is directed to a replete scope of images that ranges from the smallest conceivable make submissive to the largest. The shifts in perception alert a continuous play between order and disorder that parallels Francis's proces of marking and erasing.

Of the works shown here, the drawings are greatest in quantity successful in providing the visual experience just described. The introduction of photo-reproduction in the collage present the appearances conceptually and graphically unresolved. And the casual mounting of all the works -- push-pinned to the wall -- detracted a bit from their intensity and elegance, Nonetheless, with her masterful touch and considered attention to the ways of perception, Francis provided enough to look at and think about.

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