Layers of lines, the Artwork of Lucas Gray

While I focus much of my attention on the world of international architecture and design, staying up to date with news, new projects, events, and other happenings, I spend what little spare time I have creating artwork. It is therapeutic, as it allows me to check out from the stress of day to day life, and narrow my focus on experimenting with textures, geometry, patterns, light and shadow. Although I began drawing as a personal hobby, I've recently started showing my art publicly with more frequency and am working on growing this part of my life. 


A couple of years ago I was awarded a grant from the Portland Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC), to develop a website to showcase my work. I've also had a few gallery shows of my work, including at the 920 Gallery in NW Portland and the Living Room gallery on NE Alberta Street. I've also shown my work at local businesses and sold a collection of my drawings to Portland Community College for their permanent collection, and is on display in Cascade Hall. I'm now currently looking for new opportunities to show work I've completed an to create commissioned work. 


My art falls on the abstract spectrum, even when they may evoke interpretations of landscapes or other images. My drawings are simple compositions of geometric shapes - sometimes sharp and angular, other times more flowing with circles or loose curves. As I develop each drawing I layer thousands of pen marks in complex cross-hatching and explore what feelings or imagery the work can evoke. How can simple lines on a page create depth? How can the natural development of a an image resemble waves, light falling on water, silhouettes of hills, or dark clouds? How can I weave color into the composition?


As experiments, most of my drawings to date have been quite small. This allows me to work through different ideas and see the results of new approaches quickly. However, I'm now moving into larger scale work. First, I explored how taking a series of the smaller drawings can be woven together in larger installations. I first attempted this at the 920 Gallery show and then reworked the installation for a permanant installation at the Portland Community College. 
 

Still these exhibits contained the small scale drawings. I'm now working on singular large-scale drawings. These require more thought and planning than the smaller experiments and I'm excited to see how this new work will grow from my previous work. 


Along with the images in this post, you can see more of my drawings and some installation design on my website: www.lucasgrayart.com


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The images depicted in this post are a series of drawings that are part of the permanent collection on display at Portland Community College, Cascade Campus in Portland, Oregon. The site-specific installation combines 22 drawings of various sizes, arranged along the length of an entire corridor. The images are laid over a backdrop of angled lines created with black string, that unify the individual pieces into a larger composition.

Photography of work by
Steven Vaughan

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