Escape Into Life

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
-Paul Cezanne

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C. J. Pyle

Artist Statement:

I had never seen anything like my woven-knot technique before I developed it, so there was no inspiration for it, really. I just loved the act of drawing and had been drawing consistently since about age 12. I guess if you do something that much over the years you might discover something, and I think that I did.

As to how the weave technique with a ball point pen developed? It came out of the rock clubs, where I played from the mid-seventies into the early nineties. As a traveling musician, there’d be down time because of sound checks, breaks, traveling, etc. and I would while away the time perfecting the weave.

As a child, I loved the detailed ink work of Basil Wolverton and also loved making rope knots–I tied hundreds of them — and became fixated on the weave of the rope. So those two inspirations somehow found its way into my personal artwork many years later; they’re the foundation for my work.

I like making two-color portraits; I don’t really know why, I just do. As a kid, drawing faces is what I fixated on. I also find creating an image with limited color much more challenging than one created with many colors.

C. J. Pyle at Carl Hammer Gallery