Stephen Antonakos: Drawings and Neons 1967-2006

From June 29 through July 31, 2006, The Drawing Room is pleased to present "Light, Location, Color": an exhibition of drawings and neon work by Stephen Antonakos. The exhibition focuses on two distinct periods of Antonakos’s ongoing explorations of light, space, and color, bracketing the five-decade career of this artist who is known both for his signature neon installations, neon panels, and architectural meditation spaces as well as a rigorous body of drawings, a central and formative practice.

The first gallery features the iconic white gold and neon panel, Son of Alpheus (2001) and recent colored pencil drawings on vellum. These drawings reveal the latest evolution in Antonakos’s twenty-five year exploration of colored pencil on translucent Plastivellum, a textured paper he prefers for its luminosity. The impact of these delicate elongated drawings, which mine the potential of four-colored pencils, depends upon short, gestured strokes activated by the white space that envelops them. The energy and light they emanate harmonizes with the sublime presence of Son of Alpheus, a gilded panel backlit by hidden, grass green neon tubes. The shimmering plane seems to float off the wall surrounded by a glow of suffused evanescent light. As Irving Sandler points out in his 1999 monograph, it is no surprise that Antonakos is a great admirer of Mark Rothko. In Antonakos’s work, neon imbues Minimalism with the spirituality of Byzantium.

 
See below for full press release and selected works.