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Between the Lines

Maryland Art Place exhibit reads ‘Between the Lines’
By Jordan Bartel, Times Staff Writer

If the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, a new exhibition in Baltimore is taking the long way.

“Between the Lines,” running through Feb. 10 at Maryland Art Place, explores the aesthetic properties of lines and marks.

With a slew of different representations of lines through drawings and sculpture, the exhibition focuses on how lines are used to provide information and visual frameworks within space.

There are traditional representations of lines, but the exhibit also highlights variations on the simple form.

Lines never seemed so non-linear.

“It’s the quality of the line more aesthetically that we are drawn to,” said Kay Hwang, the chair of MAP’s program advisory committee that created the exhibit. “Some drawings, when you pass by, you just walk on by.  But there’s an essence of lines that if you draw a line, then do it a thousand times, it’s a matter of transformation.”

Ten regional artists are included in “Between the Lines.” Their differences can be summed up when comparing the work of artists Linn Meyers and Youngmi Song Organ.

Meyers uses lines, thousands of them, to create a meditative environment in her drawings. “When she is drawing a space, it’s a place that’s very atmospheric,” Hwang said.

Organ on the other hand uses the exactly same form of the line, but the line is made from human hair. “That takes you to a different place, altogether,” said Hwang.

More than half of the artists in the exhibit use the line in an abstract, minimal way, Hwang said. But many convey some kind of emotion.

That’s exactly what Hwang was looking for when she helped put together “Between the Lines.”

“I wanted to see how many are out there that use the line as their language to communicate with,” she said. “It’s a very basic tool, but the line becomes an extension of their own body.”

And an extension of their artistic mentality. Cornel Rubino’s piece “The Left as Perceived from the Right — The Right as Perceived from the Left” is a collection of traditional drawing panels reflecting on non-traditional thought.

In the work, Rubino explores stereotypes the “left” (in the work, that label includes “black, gays and Jews”) has of the “Right” (“anti-abortion, pro-gun activists, rednecks”) and vice-versa. Cornel, a part-time painting, drawing and illustration lecturer at the Maryland Institute College of Art, creates his lines mostly through graphite pencil.

“There are many ways of creating a line,” said Rubino, whose drawings have appeared in the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly magazines. “The side of a building is a line. The edge of a chair is a line. There’s a curve, an expression of the way I feel.”

Rubino said he hasn’t seen the other work included in “Between the Lines” but isn’t surprised that there are as many variations on the basic art tools as there are artists.

But he isn’t surprised that a simple line can evoke so much.

“You can use line very intently, you can use line to seduce,” Rubino said. “You can seduce with a line without ever having a narrative or object or subject.

“Clearly, we like seductive lines. We are drawn by beautiful buildings or chairs. You hear about cars having lines. Lines transcend art, but are always the basics as well.