Joan Tanner
American, 1935-
donottellmewhereibelong #33, 2015
chalk, pencil, pastel, graphite, ballpoint on Arches
22 x 30 in.
Courtesy of the artist
COMMENTS
Joan Tanner’s work, featured in UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum, is unlike any artwork I have ever seen before. Titled “donottellmewhereibelong”, the intriguing show contains drawings by the well-known Joan Tanner. Her drawings seem alive; confusing yet compelling forms offer interesting contrasts and questions.
Receiving her B.A. in painting and sculpture from University of Wisconsin Madison, Tanner has been exhibiting her work since the 1968. A well-known sculptor, painter, photographer and installation artist, drawing has always been an important aspect to the artist’s process. Tanner has lived and worked in Santa Barbara since the mid-60s; she is often influenced by the weather and landscape surrounding her. For example, Tanner pulls inspiration of “Earthquakes”, a natural disaster signature to California.
Tanner is inspired by a “curiosity to engage contradiction” and an impulse “to disrupt assumptions about spatial relations.”
She is inspired to create work that is totally unique and almost indescribable. Often experimenting with form and materials, Tanner’s art defies logic and definition. Like the title of the exhibition states, she will not be told where she belongs…
Although the drawings in “donottellmewhereibelong” cannot totally be defined, they are intricately beautiful and captivating. When I first looked at these drawings, I was automatically confused; however, with further inspection, I noticed a close attention to contrast and juxtaposition.
The “donottellmewhereibelong” drawings incorporate big areas of smeared color and material, overlaid with delicate, detailed line drawings. This work is characterized by “tensions between the ephemerality and groundness, nuance and boldness, nature and human systems.”
The drawings contain or are derived from abstract depictions of scientific textbook drawings, dictionary illustration and map making. In contrast, the drawings also show abstracted landscapes, human sexual organs, or natural events. Something very intricate and exact combined with a looser, indescribable concept or form. Some of Tanner’s drawings in “donottellmewhereibelong” have a bright color wash
covering the entire page, “donottellmewhereibelong #11” and “donottellmewhereibelong #33.” On top of these shades, a form takes shape in the middle of the page. Composed with smudged material, intricate linear patterns layer over top of one another.
Other drawings like “donottellmewhereibelong #1” and “donottellmewhereibelong #3,” seem to combine the same technique: blobby forms with intricate patterns and line work over top. However, these drawings have the blank white background of the paper. Instead, the abstracted, ameba like forms seem like islands on the page, connected with delicate, graphic line work.
Drawings like “donottellmewhereibelong #14”, “donottellmewhereibelong #18”, and “donottellmewhereibelong #19” have a large smudged from in the middle of the page. The form itself seems unresolved; however, Tanner wraps it with sharp lines and geometric shapes- the lines complete the form. Mixed within the smeared material, delicate, scribbly lines combine to make interesting compositions. These drawings were my favorite in the show. Tanner’s depiction of contrast was the most evident in these works- the loose forms worked perfectly alongside sharp geometric line…
All of the drawings in the show are confusing and alien at first. The drawings felt like an undefined abstract representation of Tanner’s dreams or thoughts. However, after close examination, I saw the beautiful sense of individuality in each work. I found myself getting lost in staring at each individual mark: each touch of the pen or smudged mark from the artist’s hand. It is also refreshing, in a world full of repeated images and texts, to see something completely new and unheard of.
Emily Moser, Joan Tanner: “donottellmewhereibelong”, The Carolinian Web, February 8, 2017
https://carolinianuncg.com/2017/02/08/joan-tanner-donottellmewhereibelong/
SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS
Throughout her career, Tanner has made drawings, using them to test designs that she might realize elsewhere. Drawing helps her to grasp and clarify her creative ideas and emotional experiences—in her words, to explore “thought forms.” Tanner allows drawing’s tools, methods, and restrictions to direct her initial concepts and impulses. The recent work shown here reveals her fascination with organic, scientific, geological, and architectural forms. Tanner admits that the ideas in her drawings evolve through chance and accident as she becomes absorbed in the work’s invention—the outcome is not necessarily the ending she first had in mind. This is also true of sculptures. However, this is not to say that she is doing something unintentionally. Rather, Tanner focuses on the give-and-take that occurs between forms and materials, and it is this interplay that develops, in her hands, into fresh and unexpected imagery.
- Out of Joint: Joan Tanner, 2023