Skip to main content

Main navigation

  • Visit
  • Exhibitions & Events
  • Art & Design
  • Give
  • Search

Visit Main Menu Block

  • Hours & Admission
  • Accessibility & Amenities
  • Tours & Group Visits
  • Visitor Guidelines

Exhibitions and Events Main Menu Block

  • Exhibitions
  • Events

Art and Design Main Menu Block

  • Collection
  • Collection Research
  • Past Exhibitions
  • Watch / Listen / Read

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum
Colorful portrait of a medium-dark-skinned Sikh man wearing a yellow and orange pagri, or turban. Standing at the counter of his deli, with food and convenience items behind him.
Jagdeep Raina, Satnam Singh at the Punjabi Deli. Paula and Leonard Granoff Fund

Perception and Presence in Contemporary Drawing

March 5 - September 11, 2022
Colorful portrait of a medium-dark-skinned Sikh man wearing a yellow and orange pagri, or turban. Standing at the counter of his deli, with food and convenience items behind him.
Jagdeep Raina, Satnam Singh at the Punjabi Deli. Paula and Leonard Granoff Fund

Introduction

This presentation explores the ways artists have pushed the medium of drawing to address aesthetic, social, and representational issues pertinent to our time. Made between 1962 and 2019, these works solicit our participation and direct our attention.

What does the act of perception require of us as viewers? How does a drawing come to have presence? Whether figurative, abstract, or somewhere in between, these works invite close looking as you, the viewer, move closer to their meanings, intentions, and possibilities.

Conor Moynihan, Assistant Curator Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

The RISD Museum is supported by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and with the generous partnership of the Rhode Island School of Design, its Board of Trustees, and Museum Governors.

Exhibition images

view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image
view exhibition image

Related Objects

A drawing of a male figure engulfed in surging water or flames. His right hand extends out of the surge, and his mournful expression is barely visible in the tumult.

Steve Mendelson

#6
An inky black drawing of a deer with enormous antlers, which frame and mirror a crescent moon. Beneath the antlers and behind the deer, dramatic lightning illuminates the scene.

Steve Mendelson

#5
No Image Available

Dawn Clements

BED
Done in white and blue with regular vertical red lines that run across the entire sheet, this drawing hazily depicts a male-presented figure seated adjacent to a window.

René Santos

Harp Drawing
Monochromatic self-portrait of Sue McNally resting her cheek on her fist. The left background of the sheet is blank white, while on the right ink fades from black to grey.

Sue McNally

Untitled
A regal portrait of a woman’s head done in red pastel. Her gaze is commandingand confident. The drawing is rendered using a spare amount of line and marks.

Claudette Johnson

Untitled

/

Download

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Footer Main Navigation

  • Visit

    • Hours & Admission
    • Accessibility & Amenities
    • Tours & Group Visits
    • Visitor Guidelines
  • Art & Design

    • Collection Research
    • Collection
    • Past Exhibitions
  • Join / Give

    • Become a Member
    • Give
  • Exhibitions & Events

    • Exhibitions
    • Events
  • Watch / Listen / Read

    • The Latest
    • Publications
    • Articles
    • Audio & Video

Footer Secondary Navigation

  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Image Request
  • Press Office
  • Rent the Museum
  • Terms of Use
Tickets
Homepage
Go to the risd.edu homepage. This link will open in a new window.