Desk 1935 - 1942

Edna Rex made this drawing of a desk, it's hard to say exactly when, and with what. The way the desk is drawn gives it this odd presence, a kind of uncanny familiarity, like a dream of a desk. I mean, it’s brown, right? A woody brown. And the shapes are pretty simple, but it’s also not really about the object itself. The perspective feels wonky, and I keep thinking about the process of drawing, the hand moving, trying to figure something out. Like, what does a desk even mean? The lines aren't precise, and the color is flat, which throws the whole thing into this weird, poetic space. The desk seems to float on the page, not really grounded, more like an idea. It reminds me of some of those early modernist drawings, Cezanne maybe, where they’re not just showing you something, they’re showing you how they’re seeing it. The whole drawing becomes about the act of looking. It’s this back-and-forth, push and pull that makes it so interesting.