Singularis, an exhibition of new drawings by Jake Gilson, will be on display October 17 through November 14 at William Campbell Contemporary Art. An opening event will be held on Saturday, October 17, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The gallery will also offer a 3-D virtual tour of the show, soon available at www.williamcampbellcontemporaryart.com. Singularis marks the first time this collection has been exhibited.

In keeping with recommended precautions due to the pandemic, the number of guests inside the gallery at one time is limited, and masks are required.

Singularis will include more than a dozen large-scale abstract drawings in graphite and crayon, on paper and polyethelene. Filled with meticulously rendered horizontal lines, the austere yet intricate compositions remain free from any specific temporal context. Seemingly unending striations at once ground the surface and float atop it, weaving their way through physical and visual space.

Completely nonrepresentational, the hand-drawn linear elements comprise the subject matter without actually defining it. Gilson writes:

I try to make a visual and emotional experience that is beyond ethical understanding. To see and feel without reference to what is known. Some elements might be recognizable but the context is unrelated, making it an enigma. If successful, there is a new reality that allows a moment to be empty, limitless, and ripe.

Gilson's drawings speak to the infinite possibilities of the moment, emerging as that new reality, stripping away what we recognize, and allowing fresh thoughts and feelings to manifest. All about the action of mark making and the elusive, ephemeral state that inspires the action, the drawings contain, according to the artist, "only what the process allows and nothing more." They represent only the unknown and singular place he discovers while making them.

The Latin term Singularis means "alone of its kind." Gilson's pieces embody that singular moment of creation and then revelation. Thus, they become material evidence of the artist's journey through that moment, even as they eschew any recognizable correlation to space, time, or object.