Rock, Paper, Scissors: Drawn from the JoAnn Gonzalez Hickey Collection

What is drawing? While seemingly straightforward, the potential answers to this question are innumerable and complex. Some may see drawing as practice for a larger work in another medium; a system of note taking; a substitute for the camera; an act vital to artistic, spiritual, or intellectual growth; the primary focus of art; a method for experiment and risk; not confined to two dimensions; an extension of the body; everything.

Drawing is essential in the contemporary art world. The number of artists who identify primarily as practitioners of drawing is great; many artists move between drawing and other previously privileged practices without making hierarchical distinctions. The number of forms drawing can take is extraordinary and surprising; artists regularly expand the vocabulary for art through drawing.

Rock, Paper, Scissors features selections from the JoAnn Gonzalez Hickey collection made by students in PAFA’s Fall 2014 Advanced Drawing seminar led by PAFA’s Senior Curator, Robert Cozzolino, and artist/faculty member Astrid Bowlby. As the course progressed, the students brought their studio experience, class discussions, and experience with original artwork and the broader art world to shape the exhibition.  Students established a relationship with Hickey and explored her collection, an invitation made possible through her SYZYGY curatorial platform for study.  The result is an unusual curatorial project full of discovery.