Figure 1935 - 1942

Florence Truelson made this drawing, Figure, on paper, with a collection of pens and pencils. You know, it’s interesting, the way she renders these figures, they’re like accumulations. There's this obsessive quality, you can see it in the details—the way she builds up the forms with all these tiny objects. The objects have this metallic sheen, like bronze or gold. I love the textures. Each item is delineated, but you can still feel her hand, and the specificity of the graphite or ink. If you zoom in, you can see the marks, the variations in pressure and density. And the way she uses the linear structures of the objects to define the shape of the form. It reminds me a little of Joseph Cornell, this collecting of things and assembling them into a new whole. But unlike Cornell, Truelson isn’t interested in evoking a sense of nostalgia or memory. It feels more like she's trying to create something new, out of the materials at hand.