Tim Hawkinson: Tantric Drip Drawings

The word tantra, Sanskrit for "loom" or "weave," is a metaphor for Hindu and Buddhist spiritual practices that bring together rituals, texts and teachings to guide understanding of the universe and a person's place within it.

To create this group of large-scale drawings, Tim Hawkinson constructed an apparatus that functions in much the same way as a tattooist's needle. Large sheets of paper are mounted on a turntable fixed flat to the wall. Using his contraption, he applies India ink to the paper and allows it to run in straight lines. He then rotates the paper and repeats the process from different angles to construct complex geometric forms that bulge and bend across the picture plane - despite the absence of any curved lines.

Many are uncannily totemic - stylized and fetishistic representations of the human body. Others evoke the geometry and optical effects of Islamic tiling or American quilts. Each, constructed through the ritualistic buildup of lines, is a token of Hawkinson's idiosyncratic practice.

Tim Hawkinson was born in San Francisco in 1960 and received his BFA from San Jose State University before moving to the Los Angeles area (MFA 1989, University of California, Los Angeles), where he is currently based. Hawkinson's work has been exhibited internationally with solo museum shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., among others. His work is in numerous collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art; San Jose Museum of Art, California; J. Paul Getty Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Tantric Drip Drawings is Hawkinson's second solo exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery.