Personal Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Joseph Yoakum
American; 20th-century
Normal, IL: University Galleries of Illinois State University
73%
Mt. Humphrey’s Peak. 1970. Colored pencil and ink on paper
What's before and what's behind anything is tough to determine in this drawing, especially given that chute near the picture's dead center where blue sky blends into tan maybe-sky blends into green earth — if that tan band between blue and green is meant to be seen as a strip of land in the middle distance, then perspective is working even more impishly than it initially seems to be. There are two types of Yoakum drawings: the ones whose value lies in their cramming together of so many conflicting planes and decorative features, and the ones (like this one) that are fairly open and through that openness confound easy looking. The latter tend to be a bit better because that confounding of vision makes whatever's legible seem that much more significant. See the four small outlined trees about an eighth of the way up in this drawing; they anchor all the impossible swoops and bends around them. (2024)