Marilyn Banner

STATEMENT

I work with trust in an inner knowing, a body/psyche sense of the connections of things, inside and out, past and present, lost and found.

These diaristic drawings and objects hint at presence and connections, aloneness and relationships. My tools and means are modest. In the drawings: raw canvas, drawing pens and markers, walnut and India inks, wax and conte crayons. In the objects: wood chips, bone, and teeth covered with encaustic. Their size is intimate, requiring close viewing.

I draw things that I find and pick up, want to hold in my hands, cherish in some way. A bit of water softened tree bark or rusted metal, an animal tooth or a small doll – any of these might be the beginning of a drawing. I follow an inner sense when I work. I don’t know where it will lead. I am always surprised.

I respond and work with the visceral nature of my body. My work is tactile. I like to hold, touch, carve, poke, smooth and shape things, to leave a sense of my hand. A human being made this.

I am the creator and viewer at once, allowing things to “come through” me, taking time to look and wonder, and then noticing things about the work. I see themes that recur in my work over decades – body, female body, darkness, threat, and blood. I see the beauty of organic shapes in nature, the curves, the textures, the sense of here and now. I see light and delicacy, layers of images, a suggestion of flight. I see the presence of spirit.