I just learned about Vera Molnar, another artist who seems to have broken a lot of the ground I enjoy treading myself.
She is currently 97 years old (b 1924), living and working in France, spending her time exploring computer-aided drawing.
Usually I get upset when I find that yet another famous artist has beaten me to an idea, but in this case it's comforting in a way to know there's an artist whose work I can build upon.
I came across her circuitously, of course—rabbitholisticly, if you like—this time starting with a book from the Drawing Center, specifically its 25th Anniversary Benefit Selections Exhibition (Drawing Papers 31), which contained the transcript of a symposium called Drawing (as) Center. (Readable online at issuu here: 25th Anniversary Benefit Selections Exhibition.)
I was interested in some comments I'd heard from Terry Winters. I'd been interested in his printmaking for some years, and his drawing more recently, after Houston artist David McGee advised me to look more closely at his work (to perhaps draw more meaning from my own).
The Drawing Center catalog wasn't as interesting as I thought—it was mainly the transcript of a loosely organized artist panel with too many participating artists to make for a coherent narrative—but it contained an essay by Catherine de Zegher ("The Transitional Space of Drawing"), which led me to find a show she curated at MoMA, very cleverly called On Line, which has a spectacular online exhibition image catalog.
Many of the works struck me as interesting, but Molnar's stood out, maybe because it was a voice I hadn't heard before, but more likely because I recognized a kindred spirit: someone interested in lines qua lines, no matter whether drawn by hand or by computer.
You can find more of her work online via this Vera Molnar Google Image Search.
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