James Drake: Red Drawings and White Cut-Outs

JAMES DRAKE’s career has spanned more than thirty years and includes work in many different media including drawings, sculpture, video, and installation. However, he is best known for his draftsmanship, and his drawings have been consistently admired and sought after by collectors and museums. This most recent publication of his works on paper focuses on the White Cut-Outs and Red Drawings. 

The predominately white cut-out drawings are ephemeral studies in composition and subtraction. Made by literally cutting the paper with an X-Acto blade, the elegant works belie their extremely complicated fabrication and technical bravado—visible as much by the shadows they cast as by the drawn line. The Red Drawings began in direct response to the White Cut-outs. The intensity and saturation of the red chalk infuses the drawings with a different life and character. 

This oversize book includes all of the pieces made from both series and is accompanied by an essay by Carter Foster, drawing curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.