Over the course of five years (2012-2016) Gerry Bannan developed an extraordinary series of large-scale still life drawings using black ballpoint pen on expansive sheets of Mylar. Sourcing Northern European Old Master paintings and prints, Bannan re-imagined the memento mori or vanitas still life tradition—with its focus on the fragility of life and our own mortality—in exceptionally complex and intricate drawings.
In a departure from his characteristic ballpoint pen still lifes, Bannan began in 2016 to chart new territory, expanding his artistic practice by experimenting first by focusing on landscapes as his subject matter. Several of the earlier ballpoint pen on Mylar works in this exhibition, such as Unraveling: Half a Page of Scribbled Lines (2016) or the two works titled Water’s Edge l and ll (2016), are examples of transitional works, precursors to the significant leap that followed in Bannan's work in terms of content, technique, and scale.
