Kerry Schuss Gallery

Press Release

ball-point, adjective- Having as a writing point a tiny steel ball rotating freel against an inking magazine; --of a pen.

It didn't take long for the ballpoint pen to take over the writing world. Cheaply made, easily distributed, disposable once exhausted, the fountain pen with its inkwells didn't stand a chance. Like the word "Kleenex," before it, brand names of pens quickly became synonymous with the fact of ballpoint. Witness Bic, or Papermate, among others. In the hands of artists, as well as bored schoolkids or anyone who has ever doodled while talking on the phone, the ballpoint pen can be that omnipresent tool whereby strange and lovely things can come into being--when not taking names & phone numbers, endorsing checks, scribbling postcards in haste, etc.

Ballpoint Inklings gathers examples from a wide range of artists in an attempt to bring attention to the graphic particularity of the ballpoint line, color, look, feel. Contemporary artists are put together with outsider artists. Obsessives are lumped in with structuralists. A photographer of the ballpoint line is linked to those who make the lines. And what emerges in the show is an unlikely but impressive collection of works on paper (or plates), that celebrates and redeems (as well as makes lovable), this most quotidian of ink dispensers.

In black, blue, green, red, or purple, ballpoint ink has a tough, durable presence. Not easily expunged--once the mark is made--that mark can be bold or delicate, urgent or restrained. It can pursue representational information, or pattern, or both. Like all drawing, it can make evident the thinking of the artist at work, reveal the growing presence of the image or structure as it comes into being.

In the way that handwriting, and more particularly our signatures, present a kind of identity-confirming uniqueness to us all, this show features thirty individuals, no two of whom look alike. Ballpoint Inklings makes the case for the actual value of this greasy ink. And valorizes the otherwise laughably modest throwaway object called the ballpoint pen as it becomes the vehicle by which artists create gorgeous, intelligent, offbeat, seductive works of art.

Artists include (selected linked to show images): Carroll Dunham, Ray Hamilton, Alexander Ross, Ele D'Artagnan, Lori Ellison, Philip Knoll, Elizabeth Murray, John Newman, Yuri Masnyi, Suzanne McClelland, Dan Fischer, James Siena, Dr. Ray Davis, Steve di Benedetto, Russell Crotty, Rose de Smith Greenman, Katia Santibanez, Bill Adams, Ill Lee, Mark Greenwold, Chelo Amezcua, Gary Stephan, Thomas Nozkowski, David Humphrey, Michelle Segre, Harvey Tulcensky, Susan Jennings, Jeff Way, Joanne Greenbaum, Jennifer Coates, Stephen Talasnik and others. ball-point, adjective- Having as a writing point a tiny steel ball rotating freel against an inking magazine; --of a pen.

It didn't take long for the ballpoint pen to take over the writing world. Cheaply made, easily distributed, disposable once exhausted, the fountain pen with its inkwells didn't stand a chance. Like the word "Kleenex," before it, brand names of pens quickly became synonymous with the fact of ballpoint. Witness Bic, or Papermate, among others. In the hands of artists, as well as bored schoolkids or anyone who has ever doodled while talking on the phone, the ballpoint pen can be that omnipresent tool whereby strange and lovely things can come into being--when not taking names & phone numbers, endorsing checks, scribbling postcards in haste, etc.

Ballpoint Inklings gathers examples from a wide range of artists in an attempt to bring attention to the graphic particularity of the ballpoint line, color, look, feel. Contemporary artists are put together with outsider artists. Obsessives are lumped in with structuralists. A photographer of the ballpoint line is linked to those who make the lines. And what emerges in the show is an unlikely but impressive collection of works on paper (or plates), that celebrates and redeems (as well as makes lovable), this most quotidian of ink dispensers.

In black, blue, green, red, or purple, ballpoint ink has a tough, durable presence. Not easily expunged--once the mark is made--that mark can be bold or delicate, urgent or restrained. It can pursue representational information, or pattern, or both. Like all drawing, it can make evident the thinking of the artist at work, reveal the growing presence of the image or structure as it comes into being.

In the way that handwriting, and more particularly our signatures, present a kind of identity-confirming uniqueness to us all, this show features thirty individuals, no two of whom look alike. Ballpoint Inklings makes the case for the actual value of this greasy ink. And valorizes the otherwise laughably modest throwaway object called the ballpoint pen as it becomes the vehicle by which artists create gorgeous, intelligent, offbeat, seductive works of art.

Artists include (selected linked to show images): Carroll Dunham, Ray Hamilton, Alexander Ross, Ele D'Artagnan, Lori Ellison, Philip Knoll, Elizabeth Murray, John Newman, Yuri Masnyi, Suzanne McClelland, Dan Fischer, James Siena, Dr. Ray Davis, Steve di Benedetto, Russell Crotty, Rose de Smith Greenman, Katia Santibanez, Bill Adams, Ill Lee, Mark Greenwold, Chelo Amezcua, Gary Stephan, Thomas Nozkowski, David Humphrey, Michelle Segre, Harvey Tulcensky, Susan Jennings, Jeff Way, Joanne Greenbaum, Jennifer Coates, Stephen Talasnik and others.