Excerpts from an insightful 2016 art review by Claudia Rousseau, Ph.D. in East City Art.
“In 1972 Krebs won a Guggenheim Foundation grant to pursue his experimental light works. However the grant allowed him time to create a series of works on paper that aimed at expressing the atmospheric and ephemeral qualities of his light works. These are the Smoke Drawings now on exhibit... But in every case, Krebs’ obsession with meticulous control of what went on the paper is evident, resulting in a remarkably elegant group of works that remain in the mind long after seeing them...

The image is evocative of many things, from microscopic animals to galaxies meeting in deep space. This iconography seems to permeate all the works, alluding to both the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously, capturing the chance movements of the medium that mimic nature’s simplicity and mystery...

Also on view in a separate space at the gallery are a group of six works by contemporaries of Rockne Krebs in Washington DC including Sam Gilliam, Gene Davis and Thomas Downing, Leon Berkowitz and Alma Thomas. An acrylic on paper by Anne Truitt, similarly titled by its date, 24 Oct. ‘71, is deep orange with fainter orange lines overlaying the ground in spaced intervals. The tactile sense of surface that the artist achieved in this simple and small painting is extraordinary, reminding one of the lure of minimalism. In contrast, however, the richness and depth of Krebs’ Smoke Drawings, with their baroque swirl seem forward looking and their appeal is universal.” Claudia Rousseau, Ph.D., 2016

Hemphill Fine Arts, Rockne Krebs: The Smoke Drawings Reviewed, Claudia Rousseau, Ph.D., East City Art, March 29, 2016. Review https://tinyurl.com/3f5hx7ju

Reel drawing - Untitled, Rocklne Krebs, 8/1973

Reel on Instagram https://tinyurl.com/476shwdj
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