Four Large Drawings

To inaugurate Courttney Cooper’s first solo show at Western Exhibitions, the gallery will present a related group show, Four Large Drawings, in Gallery 2, featuring one large drawing each from four gallery artists, Richard Hull, Robyn O'Neil, Geoffrey Todd Smith and Deb Sokolow. Both shows open with a free public reception on Friday, November 11 from 5 to 8pm and will run through December 31. The gallery will be open by appointment from December 24 to December 31. For more images and information, contact Scott Speh scott@westernexhibitions.com (312) 480-8390

While Cooper's massive hand-drawn, ball-point pen maps of Cincinnati occupy Gallery 1 of Western Exhibitions, selections in Gallery 2 from four other gallery artists connect to various aspects of Cooper's practice in terms of scale and content. The four large drawings are all black and white for the most part, mirroring Cooper's black ink on collaged office paper aesthetic. His winding streets of Cincinnati parallel the circulatory systems of Richard Hull's scroll-like charcoal drawing. At their most relatable level, Cooper's drawings are landscapes, a genre long beloved and travelled by Robyn O'Neil; the upside-down wave in her "Hurricane" matches the undulations and energy of Cooper's frenetic cityscapes. Both he and Geoffrey Todd Smith share a sense of patience and rigor, making work that requires exhaustive attention to detail and intricate mark marking. And Cooper and Deb Sokolow each bring idiosyncratic points of view to the subject matter of their drawings, with Cooper's verve for and sometimes indignation towards his hometown simpatico to Sokolow's gimlet-eyed observations of human behavior.