Industrial Abstraction 2014-2025 — Fiona McGuigan

Exploration of Place

My belief in the value and tradition of drawing is fundamental to my work. I draw an object hundreds of times before abstracting the image, internalizing the shapes until I am able to recreate them blind through spatial knowledge and muscle memory.

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The work in this series is based on drawings I made of crane barges and outfalls along the Duwamish River over the past 10 years. Massive in scale and graphic in shape, they are functional monuments to our city’s industrial machine. They are my beacons in the landscape, giving me a sense of scale and marking my path. They are also my timekeepers, reminding me of moments in time, the history of our city, and time spent along the river.

This observation, memorization, and repetition deconstruct the object in an intense process of iteration and exploration. As I recreate the images in various techniques, I push past representation until the barges transform into a visual alphabet, becoming letters with which I create a language and tell a story.

Constant Image 2012 -2013