In The Backspace

Forming The Overhand Knot

Tom Albers

October 05 – 28, 2017
Reception / Thursday, October 05, 6–8pm

Artist Statement /
My art making process combines gestural marks and material handling with a structural, geometric and /or rigid device.

After watching an artist friend of mine tying strips of paper into overhand knots I decided to try it. Not only does this simple knot in rope have a reliable practical use, its flattened presence, as in a paper knot, has a sense of containment and geometry.

I realized that one flat overhand knot forms one of the five corners of a pentagon. Using the knot as a device for my process, I folded and tied my paintings on paper and other rolls of material into pentagons. The art then becomes a dichotomy of a static shape holding active marks.