You might not guess it from the name, but “Speed and Pressure” is a drawing show. You might not guess it from the work, either.
The group exhibition at VisArts’ Kaplan Gallery includes several examples of traditional drawing media: pen, pencil or charcoal on paper. The word “speed” refers to how a line changes based on how quickly or slowly the hand pushes or pulls the drawing tool; “pressure” to how firmly the tool’s tip is applied to the surface, whether it be paper, plastic film, canvas or wood.
But the show also features sculpture, video animation, installation and performance. While embracing both expected and unexpected forms of picturemaking, “Speed and Pressure” emphasizes the making over the picture.
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“Speed and Pressure” includes two elegant abstract works from Ryan Hoover’s “Sculpting With Satellites” series. Despite the name, they’re closer to 3-D drawings than to sculpture. Their flowing paths were created not by pen or pencil, but by the movement of the artist’s body through space.
Each piece began as a walk Hoover took through his Baltimore neighborhood, as recorded by the GPS function of the artist’s iPhone, which creates a record of both vertical and horizontal movement as well as the artist’s traveling speed. The modeling software he uses slightly exaggerates the height of the pieces.
Instead of plotting his path with simple points along a line, Hoover maps his route using a series of flattened ovals, which grow thin where the artist was moving quickly and thicken as he slowed down. The visual effect is that of a Chinese ribbon dance, frozen in space and time.