Umphalos: Slave to the Light

Listing No: 10960

Other Images

  • CSODE-23220 b by BB.JPG
  • CSODE-23220 a by BB.JPG
  • CSODE-23220 c by BB.JPG
  • CSODE-23220 d by BB.JPG
  • CSODE-23220 e by BB.JPG

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Offered By

Valley House Gallery

Dallas, TX

Valley House Gallery

6616 Spring Valley Road

Dallas, TX 75254

972-239-2441
[email protected]

Please have the item listing number on hand when you call. This artwork's listing number is: 10960

Artwork Info

FAE Listing No:
10960
Artist:
Ellen Soderquist (1945-)
Title:
Umphalos: Slave to the Light
Date of Work:
2002
Signature:
"Soderquist © 02" at lower right
Where Produced:
Dallas, Texas
Presentation:
Framed

Artwork Medium

Type:
Drawing
Medium:
Graphite
Support:
on Paper
Medium Notes:
graphite on Arches

Artwork Size & Weight

Primary:
7 x 5 in. (Sight Size)
Outer Dimensions:
17 x 15 in.

Artwork Condition

Condition:
Excellent

Artwork Provenance

Provenance:
2002 - Works by Women, Curated by a Man, (Tracy Hicks, curator) Gallery 414, Ft. Worth TX 2002 – Article in Gulf Coast. Vol. XIV, #2, Summer/Fall, pp.64-73.

About this Piece

Umphalos, the title of this series of drawings, is the navel of the earth, or belly button. All the drawings in this series focus on this area of the body.

About the Artist

Ellen Soderquist

Artist’s Statement

Since 1979 I have been a studio artist, a teacher of life drawing and an advocate for
the nude in contemporary art. As an artist, l create intelligent and sensuous graphite
drawings of the human body. The nude has been a constant in my work since 1963; it is
my art form; and drawing is the primary technique for my expression of ideas. As a
teacher of life drawing, l advocate that my students learn the role of the nude in the
history of art and that they communicate their ideas about humanity through their work.
As a lecturer and an author, I bring the complex relevance of the unclothed human body
to the consciousness of contemporary culture.

In my freshman drawing class at SMU, we were taught life drawing as a discipline;
however, l was aware that the nude meant much more than that to me. As I laid down
the stick of charcoal after making my first gesture drawing of a nude model, I was
hooked. There was, in the flurry of charcoal on the surface of the newsprint, Somebody
looking back at me. After l discovered Kenneth Clark’s book, "The Nude: A Search for
Ideal Form," in which he stated that the nude is “not the subject of art, but a form of art” I
worked for decades to develop a technique that begins with a mass or scribble gesture
drawing that moves through abstracted forms to a tangible essence of humanity. In
numerous series of artwork, l have pursued a conceptual itinerary that spans the gamut
of human emotions and relationships and l have explored contemporary attitudes about
the nude as well as those of other cultures throughout the history of art.

Recently a reviewer described my drawings as “highly developed…elegant and
provocative." I strive to create an individual who is present for the viewer.

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