LOOK & LISTEN: Finding isolation, desolation across borders
Yahoo
Newsvine
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Google
Reddit
Fark
WHO: Sara Frantz, 27
BEST KNOWN FOR: A fluid drawing and painting style. Sometimes her images are flooded with movement and vivid color. More recently, they are meticulously drawn images of homes and telephone poles amid desolate landscapes.
CURRENTLY: Frantz’s most recent interest has been the raw landscapes of West Texas and Iceland. Her drawings of coin-sized homes, surrounded mostly by the white space of her paper, capture the desolation and ruggedness of the terrains.
The series started when Frantz lived in Skagastrond, Iceland, for an artist residency in 2008. During that month, she found herself as an outsider, the only one speaking English as her mother tongue. She also had plenty of time to draw, living under close to 24 hours of sunlight each day.
“Isolation drew me to the houses that were isolated,” Frantz said.
Frantz was attracted to the storytelling qualities of Icelanders she met. One was an account of how men in Iceland before the 1950s had to own a home before they could marry. Some would travel into uninhabitable terrain to find a mate.
“I had this weird, romantic notion of 20-year-old men trudging out into the wilderness so they could have a wife,” she said.
Frantz’s drawings are done with a ruler and include a lot of erasing and re-drawing. She’s usually hunched over her art for hours until her body goes stiff. “I think it’s kind of meditative, though. I get lost in it,” she said.
The slow process leads to drawings of stark simplicity and precise lines. There are no people, trees or roads. “For me, it’s to capture a kind of stillness and loneliness,” Frantz said. “These are about these houses in the middle of nowhere. I want that stillness and repetition to come across.”
The Icelandic landscapes led Frantz down the path toward West Texas, which, while in a different region of the world, was largely similar. Frantz traveled around the area and took photos so she could accurately depict what she saw. The drawings include Marfa, Presidio and Fort Davis. “They’re areas founded by survivalists,” Frantz said.
The landscapes are as stunningly barren as the Icelandic terrain.
“It’s breathtaking,” Frantz said. “But it’s not beautiful.”
BACKGROUND: Originally from Chicago, Frantz received her Bachelor’s of Science in studio art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003. She received her master’s of fine art in painting at the University of Texas in 2007. She lives in Austin and works as a lecturer of painting and drawing at UT-Austin and the University of Texas-San Antonio.
WEB SITE: www.sarajfrantz.com
CHECK HER OUT: Frantz’s Quit the Neighborhood, roughly 12 drawings of Icelandic and West Texas landscapes, will be on display at the Cactus Bra Space at 106 C Blue Star. Openings are 6-8 p.m. Thursday, June 4, and 6-9 p.m. Friday, June 5. Afterward by appointment only. For more information, call (210) 226-6688.
Emily Messer | 210SA contributor
(0)