"Linda Karshan: Marks and Moves"
2003-01-11 until 2003-03-02
Kettle's Yard Gallery, University of Cambridge
Cambridge, , UK United Kingdom

Kettle's Yard starts the year with an exhibition of drawings, etchings and woodcuts by Linda Karshan. Linda Karshan is one of the very few artists who have made their reputation solely by drawing. Born in America, of Romanian origins, she has lived in London since 1969. She resumed her practice as an artist only in 1983 after seeing her sons through early childhood and taking a master's degree in psychology.

The earliest drawing in the exhibition, from 1983, is like an apocalyptic storm. But in 1994 she began to adopt a simple procedure of rhythmic repetition, creating grids, rows and stacks, drawn with her 'wrong' hand. Minimal in their means and abstract in appearance, they are charged with an intuitive energy and directly reflect her bodily engagement with the work.

Writing in his catalogue essay Michael Raeburn remarks on how appropriate Linda Karshan's drawings are to the context of Kettle's Yard: 'It is, I suppose, this sense of a living presence in the drawings that produces at first sight a sense of recognition, a sense that they are part of the natural world.'

In recent months Karshan's drawings have been acquired by The British Museum, the Arts Council Collection and the Contemporary Art Society. This exhibition is her most comprehensive to date in the UK It follows exhibitions in the last year at the Soane Museum and the Redfern Gallery, and a major retrospective at IVAM in Valencia.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 32 page illustrated catalogue. During the exhibition there will be a series of talks and related events, including music by Kurtag and Feldman and discussion of Karshan's work in relation to the writing of Samuel Beckett.

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