21/100 - Framed
Right angles and straight lines are a sort of guilty pleasure for me. The architect, painter and generally wondrous maniac Friedensreich Hundertwasser despised them, wrote against them, and made a body of work that stands as a declaration of war against the "godless and immoral" straight line.
I love Hundertwasser's paintings and I almost wanted to take his banner, but the straight line also speaks of utter practicality, it simply makes life easier. Hundertwasser's influence gave me an appreciation for wonky lines, hand-drawn lines, organic lines. It removed a sort of hidden shame I felt about the lines I drew and now I'm able to wear them proudly.
I also get a jolt of happiness every time I see art that rebels against the straight line and its companion the 90 degree angle. Art drawn on hand cut frames, odd shapes and natural lines. In a way I've sinned against myself by making all of these drawings on almost perfect rectangles cut on a table saw (the queen of straight lines in the wood shop). But sometimes an advantage is and advantage, and since our eyes are trained to take images in rectangular formats I have just shrugged my shoulders and continued walking this path. I hope you can forgive my hypocrisy now that i've exposed it.
And maybe the cartoony monster framed just so in today's drawing also feels ambivalent about the whole business. Is he constrained by the frame, holding the frame, dependent upon the frame? Where do we draw the line? Hard to tell.
This ungodly rectangle is 2.5" by 3.5". Purchase link here(sold).
PS: if you are into podcasts and want to learn more Hundertwasser you need to check out the 99% Invisible episode about his architectural work called "The Straight Line Is A Godless Line", it's a solid way of spending 22 minutes of your life.