04/03/2026
Archiving photos from "Study for a Black Drawing". Photos from different shows from 1986-1990
-1986 1640 Seventh Street, Oakland
-1987 Acme Art, SF
-1990 Somar Gallery, San Francisco
Jack describes making this ongoing series of drawings, starting in 1984 is still a work in progress.
"STUDY FOR A BLACK DRAWING, 1984- an ongoing work that was also kind of a
conceptual holding pattern. After the rather arduous Kirk de Gooyer show ( 2 years of work that filled a 5000 square foot space) I started doing individual rectangles of different sizes, rectangle proportions and densities. I wanted to deal with the directness of the mark making ritual itself without the obvious illusionistic rendering of things. Sort of a new confrontation with the mark making ritual, and the daily reality of how everything was made for the last several years, without the visual pyrotechnics.
Attempts to create the impossible, ideal void followed. The void is a theme that has run through my work forever, using both objectifiednegative space, and darkness. The black rectangles do have illusionistic aspects however. Often darker at the top, and with value changes from top to bottom, they
are not unlike what happens in a sky or atmospheric landscape.
At some point, it became clear to me that the different black rectangles were all one Piece. Putting them together, awkwardly at first, but later in formal rows for each installation, I was trying to emphasize the aspect of how impossible or absurd the whole endeavor was. In a way, humorous, rather than negative, because I believe that the act of making something is a positive one.
The black drawings are also site specific, as with each installation the amount and
arrangement differ. I worked very hard to arrange them so that they APPEARED as
arbitrary. But of course nothing ever is."
-Jack Scott 2026
*For inquiries on this series or other drawings by Jack Scott send a DM.
