Andrew Lyght b . British Guiana 1949 ; works in New York , USA
G741 Drawing Structures , 2016
Oak stick framing , acrylic paint , Prismacolor pencil on plywood sheathing Courtesy of the artist
Andrew Lyght departed Guyana in 1969 for Canada and later moved to New York , where he ’ s currently based . The artist has mined acts of “ constantly moving backward and forward between his childhood in Guyana and several cities on three different continents ” in an artistic career spanning over 50 years .
In G741 Drawing Structures , a painted green rectangular plywood sheath with the bottom edges diagonally cut out is decorated with Lyght ’ s freehand drawings of white geometric shapes influenced by Amerindian “ Timehri ” rock carvings in Guyana . Drawing from his childhood days of constructing kites , Lyght creates an illusion of a floating sheath , noting how the work is meant to “ flow through space , lightly touch the plane of the wall , and appear to have no fixed boundaries .” The plywood is held in place by a visible crossbar on the front and a partially hidden lightweight oak stick framing system behind it — a reference to the stick-frame houses in Guyana that first ignited the artist ’ s attraction to line and structure . Of this visual vocabulary , meant to elude notions of confinement , Lyght states , “ I wanted to create a sense of being in a landscape , a sense of space around real things , a feeling of the near and far distance and of the horizon line , the place that you never get to .”