10 Metalpoint Artists Redefine a Traditional Technique in Contemporary Terms

In Celestial Tree (2014), artist duo Suzanne Scherer and Pavel Ouporov inscribe a tree on a wood panel tondo, adding gold leaf and Swarovski crystals as textural embellishments. Because gold leaf does not adhere to surfaces without applied moisture, Scherer and Ouporov’s process involves breathing heavily onto the material—an action they describe as giving the “breath of life” to their work.  For Lush Life (2015) Robyn Ellenbogen also worked in tondo, creating a confluence of swirls from metal coins, spoons, jewelry, and a stylus. Ellenbogen’s unique process emphasizes gestural movement and tactility and recalls the work of Louise Bourgeois, who the artist assisted in the 1970s.

Susan Schwalb and Marietta Hoferer focus on articulating linear details in metal. Schwalb draws horizontal lines onto prepared surfaces, making striking pieces that evoke striated landscapes and staves of sheet music. As art critic Lilly Wei noted in a catalog for Schwalb’s 2006 show at Winfisky Gallery in Salem, MA, Schwalb’s visual “vocabulary is restricted,” recalling Agnes Martin’s paintings. Hoferer’s monochromatic tape mosaics feature a similarly restrained use of color and rigorous, Martin-esque line compositions.

Cynthia Lin and Michael Nichols’s works feature abstract, organic shapes that sometimes suggest representative forms. Lin compares her silverpoint on gesso-coated works to “diagrams of invisible magnetic forces or microscopic crystal structures.” Citing spilt pepper and wisps of thread as reference points, the artist draws patterns that can be interpreted broadly. Nichols’s silverpoint works are ghostly portraits rendered in muted colors and blurry details. The subjects are clearly people, but their identities are unspecified—left to the viewer’s imagination.