Force Field: Drawings by Christine Hiebert
“I send out a line to negotiate the blank field of the paper, the unknown. I try to find my place there, to engage with space in a way that is both freeing and creates a sense of belonging.”—Christine Hiebert
For Christine Hiebert (American, born Switzerland), drawing starts with the problem of the line, how to form it and how to follow it. It ends with the line, too.
The Brooklyn-based artist is recognized for her abstract responses to architectural settings and natural spaces, such as the desert and range topographies of the American West. Over the past three decades, drawing has played a central role in Hiebert’s artistic journey, whether it be with charcoal, graphite, and ink, or even tape and dirt.
Read moreFor Hiebert, the gesture of a line has an inherent energy and direction, played out on a sheet of paper. There is a tension between her marks and areas left blank, and the white voids begin to suggest light.
Twelve works on paper will be on view in the Museum’s two-level atrium gallery, including 8-foot, scroll-like works accompanied by smaller related drawings. The sense of space and light she creates in these drawings conveys the vastness and unpredictable energy of nature. Hiebert grew up near Philadelphia. Her grandfather raised cattle in Nebraska; Hiebert’s childhood experiences of the farm and of camping in the west engendered an affinity for stillness and for open spaces. The artist offers us an opportunity to reflect on our own relation to the nature and language of line and its habitation in space.
Hiebert’s work has been featured in exhibitions at The Drawing Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Morgan Library and Museum, and The Museum of Modern Art. Her drawings are held in the collections of The Fogg Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, The Menil Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The Teaching Artist-in-Residence for Force Field: Drawings by Christine Hiebert is Melanie Aguirre. Learn more about the Residency Program here.
Christine Hiebert. Untitled (rd.12.3), 2012. Ink, graphite, and charcoal on paper. Courtesy of Gallery Joe.
Selected objects
Untitled (mm.16.31), 2016. Charcoal, ochre, and blue tape on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rd.12.3), 2012. Ink, graphite, and charcoal on paper. Courtesy of Gallery Joe.
Untitled (rd.12.15), 2012. Charcoal, ink, and dirt on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rd.13.5), 2013. Ink and charcoal on paper. Courtesy of Margarete Roeder Gallery.
Untitled (rdl.12.5), 2012–2018. Ink, charcoal, and graphite on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rdl.12.7), 2012. Ink, charcoal, and graphite on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rdl.12.16), 2012. Ink on paper. Courtesy of Gallery Joe. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rdl.12.18), 2012. Ink and charcoal on paper. Courtesy of Gallery Joe.
Untitled (rdl.13.1), 2013. Ink on paper. Courtesy of Margarete Roeder Gallery. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rdl.13.10), 2013. Ink, charcoal, and graphite on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rdl.14.1), 2014. Charcoal on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rdl.14.2), 2014-2018. Charcoal, graphite, and ink on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
Untitled (rdl.18.1), 2018. Ink and charcoal on paper. Courtesy of the Artist. Photograph by Alan Wiener.
