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 An opening reception will be held on Thursday,
November 11, 2021 from 5 to 8 pm at the LAI Gallery, 112 S. Mclean
St., Lincoln. The show, entitled “Sites 4 Soar Eyes”, will include
selections from several series of drawings Tice has been developing
since 2019.
Though an academically trained and experienced visual artist, Tice
decided two years ago that he wanted to reconsider drawing, which
has been a fundamental means of artistic communication for thousands
of years, but has acquired limitations within the traditional
Western esthetic. He began with works that were very exploratory in
nature, experimenting freely with his materials and techniques. At
first, he explains, the goal was to reimagine: “I was concerned with
removing the emptiness of the blank page… the content of these works
was secondary.”
After some months, Tice began to feel constraints on his progress
from two sources. First, he became dissatisfied with the
possibilities offered by commercially sourced drawing materials. He
therefore began making his own drawing charcoals from different
woods, which widened the range of line, texture, and tone in the
drawings. He also created a unique drawing tool that allows him to
make simultaneous marks from several charcoal sticks.
The artist had also felt restricted by the space in his home studio,
where he could only produce a limited number of drawings at a time.
This constraint was overcome when Tice moved into a studio space at
Lincoln Arts Institute. This has proven very successful, leading to
large scale and collaborative projects.
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LAI owner Jason Hoffman is also pleased with the arrangement.
“Having an active studio artist in the building has led to a fruitful
partnership. As our renovations continue, we are creating more studio space and
are looking forward to adding more artists this Spring.”
The November exhibition will document the development of Tice’s
experiments, with works from an Early Abstract Series (2019-2020); very
spontaneous drawings from his Pure Psychic Automatism series (2020 – ongoing);
and drawings from his Lunacy Series (2020-ongoing). In this last series the
works begin as spontaneous drawings created on the full moon, refined with
additional marks and colors. He admits that the results are “stories that
haven’t been heard, sites that are still unexplored.” The viewer is thus invited
to join in the interpretation of the images.
After the reception, the gallery will also be open on Friday evenings from 5 to
8 pm through December 4, as well as during numerous pre-holiday events
throughout the month (contact info@Lincolnartsinstitute.com for times). All
events will follow current Covid guidelines.
[Pamela Moriearty]
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