Paper Trails | Washington's Profile

Paper trails refers to both my process of leaving a trail of torn newspapers and magazines in the wake of searching for interesting found images and text and my artistic life in drawing. While I have, after all these years, a body of work that spans 40 years and that has evolved stylistically and technically, as importantly is the flotsam of that development. Looking through those boxes is like looking through years of history. Naturally the images chart a change in fashion, design, and cultural but subtler things as well: it documents a change in what pre-occupied us as a society. The eighties are filled with South American coups and civil wars; the nineties the Balkans and power lunches; the aught’s, disasters, terrorism. Those are just the surfaces, the raw edges of the material in my boxes. And because it is a collection sprung from my own artistic and personal needs, it is a skewed view. Those images that resonated with me and that generated new ideas were/are like a personal Rorschach test. From life but sublimated through de-contextualization, abreaction and re-configuration. When I dig into those boxes I dig into an archeology of history and the personal. Success is measured when the product of those paper trails end up as drawing.

CORNER • 2005 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 53 x 52 inches [135 x 132 cm]

APPARITION • 2005 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x55½ inches [133 x 141 cm]

MAP • 2006 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 54 x53½ inches [137 x 136 cm] • Private Collection, LA

SHOE • 2007 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 48 x 50½ inches [133 x 128 cm] • Private Collection, Little Rock, AR

SEARCH • 2006 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 48 x 50½ inches [133 x 128 cm]

BRIEFCASE • 2008 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 55 inches [133 x 140 cm]

BELONGINGS • 2008 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 54 inches [133 x 137 cm]

EVIDENCE • 2008 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 56 inches [133 x 142 cm]

END OF DAYS • 2009 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 57½ inches [133 x 146 cm]

WHITTLING • 2008 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 54 inches [133 x 137 cm]

HOW CAN ANYTHING EXIST WITHOUT SOMETHING TO HIDE BEHIND • 2008 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 54 inches [133 x 137 cm]

PENDULUM • 2008 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 56 inches [133 x 142 cm]

BOOK • 2009 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 50½ x 55 inches [133 x 140 cm]

DIVER • 2006 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 48 x 50½ inches [133 x 128 cm]

LEGACY • 2010 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 54 inches [133 x 137 cm] • Private Collection, LA

STRING • 2009 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 54 inches [133 x 137 cm]

THREAD • 2009 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 52½ x 55 inches [133 x 140 cm]

PROCESS • 2010 • Charcoal and Coffee on Prepared Paper • 51½ x 54 inches [131 x 137 cm]

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