GRILL by Artist Gill Alexander

GRILL Ink on Paper, 16 x 24"

TOTAL HOURS WORKED: 196

Grill or "the barbecue guy," as I often referred to it at the time was a hugely a consequential drawing for me. It was an ambitious project that I knew would be time consuming. It may have been the headset with antennae that most caught my eye as I begged my across the courtyard neighbor to let me photograph him back in the Spring of 1987. It all happened so fast that I could not have verbalized all the things that appealed to me about the composition at the time. And there were several: the harsh late afternoon sun that threw the entire balcony into stark relief, the intricate 1910‘s era railing that seemed to cage off the entire scene and dramatically frame its individual components, the sheepdog-like hank of hair that obscured the eyes, the Sistine Chapel like Adam/God finger point gesture made manifest in slacker grunge, the chaotic and intricate detail, the doorways, the multiple window frames, the pictures. This precise combination seem to embody all the themes I had been nibbling around the edges of for years.

The intricacy of this detail was exacting. Certain objects - in particular, the hamburger bun plastic bag - were great challenges. During work on this drawing I also learned the benefit of making multiple rough drafts (one from a color photo, one from a black and white) After making both I would let them compete for a place in the final draft, and the final draft was stronger for it. Grill was the most time consuming project I had ever worked on... up until that moment at least. I was very, very pleased with it at the time.

DRAFTS

GRILL #3 acrylic, color gesso and markers on Canvas, 34 x 52"

Just completed on my front steps Chicago 1989

sc0039a7fe - Version 2 - 2013-10-26 at 1

After I had finished the stippling drawing I began to focus on the increasingly baroque nature of the drafts I had been composing. This draft, what I later would call Grill #2, was probably the most complete I had ever done. I had recently seen an exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry that had shown all the steps that had go into creating a printed photographic image in a periodical. It showed negatives, offset plates, 4 color separation mark ups - and more. It took up one enormously long wall. There was a certain beauty to all the intermediate steps that were displayed. I was taken with the fact that these images contained complete sets of information that could be transferred into another form. I realized that my own drafts had a similar role. So I decided to get even more meta by creating a painting of the draft.

I spent the summer trying to work in a medium that I had no interest in or aptitude for. I set up slide projectors I purchased from thrift stores in the building's filthy basement - right next to the coal shoot. The actual painting was horrifying. But that was almost beside the point. It was just one more iteration of this system of visual information. For the next several years I would often exhibit my finished ink drawings side by side with these drafts. One of my favorite exhibitions at that time was at the McHenry County College Art Gallery in Crystal Lake IL. I exhibited Grill, its draft, Contact, its draft, and the acrylic painting together. The gallery had a kind of shadow box "under glass" quality that gave the group great look.