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My name is Tony Orrico, and I’m currently working within a series of large
scale drawings, graphite on paper, and the series is called PenWald.
So I walk into the space and I can hear, usually hear the audience. And then, when I enter
the space, I feel like the hush because it’s classified as performance and they want to
give me the stage. And then I walk onto the paper, I’m barefoot and wearing very neutral
clothing, graphite shades, my hair pulled back and walk up to my graphite sticks, come
down to my knees and then lie down prone and take a moment to center myself. At this point,
I’m pretty close to the edge of the paper, so I can’t really see in my periphery, too
much white space - I actually see, In most instances, the ankles of those who have come to see me.
I start to hear photographers, you know, start clicking. [A few camera clicks.]
And so, there’s new sound that enters the space, and take that in, and then I start
to just hear my own rhythm that I create when I start drawing.
[Sound of graphite drawing on paper.] One, two, three, four, five. And then, what
I’ll do is divide 15 strokes. I’ll get to 15 at the quarter mark, 15 at the bottom
mark, 15 at three quarters, 15 at full, giving myself the pace of about 60 efforts per circle.
There’s this interesting charge in my hands. And I was reading somewhere recently that
graphite as a conductor. So actually I’d like to investigate this a little bit more.
But I should mention that they also get really hot, I mean like hot as an oven if I’m
really cruising around a circle and I actually have to slow down because the sticks are hard
to hold on to. [Sound of graphite on paper, music low in background. Camera click.]
I feel this incredible joy and this high after I’m done. It’s like getting dirty in the
backyard. I’m full of graphite and sweat and I’m tired. It’s disorienting, almost,
changing planes after being flat for so long just trying to stand up, and my legs
are like jelly. I can barely upright myself. The audience is blurry and the room is kind
of spinning a little bit. [Music]
As the series develops, I’m dealing with
two different ideas right now of contour lines in relationship to each other, copying each
other verbatim, and moving through space. [Audience chatter]
And then, there’s the idea of unison symmetry
drawing, which would be two contour lines mirroring each other. Sometimes the gesturing
is very, you know, systematic or placed … [Pen caps fall to the concrete floor. ]
…and then at other times, allowing this idea of spontaneously navigating space. And
also tricking my body and balancing my body further by dealing with different dominating
sides of, you know, other-- the hands or the brain or however a scientist may realize what’s
happening there. I’m having the right hand be the leading or the dominating, gesturing
hand and the left hand following, and then vice versa in some of the pieces. And then
trying to find this like, dualistic initiation where it’s coming from a center point in
the body and moving through both hands. I guess, energetically, in the same way with
the same amount of force. [Camera click.]
[Woman calls out 'Stop!' Markers drop to the floor. Applause.]
[Hard rhythmic sound of graphite sticks on paper.]
And then, there’s this technique of this
pendular swinging that I do in circle on knees.
These are the basic techniques of how I’m applying graphite to the surface, and then
I’m just dealing with different planes in the body and lying flat on a surface or standing
against the wall. I think there’s elements of meditation or
being inside of the conditions of your body and being with your breath inside durational
work. Performing something, it doesn’t have to be still. I would imagine constant in a
way. [Rhythmic sound of drawing graphite on paper]
Let’s go back to childhood. Large amounts
of time alone in a room, looking into mirror or listening to that same piece of music or
sitting in the dark, or sitting in the light, just experiencing self and time. I’m really attracted
to the moments, the breakthrough moments of doing something for a long period of time.
And running long distance in which I’d like to get back to. Because I felt like a got
a lot thinking done. I like challenging that idea, that moment of wanting to quit something,
for myself. I really like challenging that. Why does art matter? For me, it’s a manifestation
of contemplation, you know. It’s trying to understand our existence and also a possibility,
the conditions of our existence, you know, what our materials are, how we can rearrange
them, and then how we can capture that or preserve that so there’s some sort of sense
of immortality inside of it.