Making a Mark: Contemporary Drawings

2022

Making a Mark features contemporary works on paper gifted to the Portland Art Museum by noted collectors of drawings Werner H. and Sally Kramarsky. The exhibition showcases 23 artists whose drawing practices emphasize process, including William Anastasi, Arnold Kemp, Marco Maggi, Allyson Strafella, and Joan Waltemath. Making a Mark illuminates the wide variety of expressions possible when materials and tools take center stage. This selection of works also reveals the many directions that contemporary artists have taken minimalism and conceptual art. Grounded in 1960s European and American art, these formalist and idea-based movements have become the foundation for divergent creative paths. A playful mix of technique and principle underscores the works in the exhibition. “I really start out by looking at something and saying, ‘How is it made?’ … What happened when the artist put the pencil or pen or brush to paper? And because it is almost impossible, when you work on paper, to correct it, that initial moment is crucial. It interests me that somebody had the courage and the idea to make that original mark.” —Werner H. Kramarsky (1926-2019) Curated by Sara Krajewski, the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

Curated by Sara Krajewski