Joseph Stashkevetch
Plenty

Text by Nancy Clare Caponi

38 pages, 15 black and white reproductions

New York, Von Lintel Gallery, 2006

$15.00

Joseph Stashkevetch's large-scale drawings are rendered in subtle shifts of monochrome black and white. Executed in conte-crayon on sanded-down rag paper, the artist's works possess a velvety texture that is both implied and real.

For his new series Plenty, the artist created two separate bodies of work that contradict and complement one another at once. Stashkevetch's virtuosic renderings of a tire-dump, rubbish piles and garbage scavengers serve as proxies for the rampant consumerism that leads to environmental degradation. Another group of works elegantly depicts water currents, rocks, and blossoms. These works are restorative and impart faith in the infinite eternity of the natural world.