Alice Leora Briggs
a rtist statement

I’ve been called a lot of things. Voyeur, journalist, history painter without a brush…these are some of the more accurate. I reshuffle images that collide with my life and reinvent them in my drawings. Junctures in human history that magnify iniquity, adaptability and heroism have fixed my attention since I was a child. Whenever possible I travel to visit sites where accounts of conflict and valor are relatively recent, yet go back far enough to blend truth with myth. Hours in these places give me sensations of light and dark, anxiety and odor. Spending time in such locales makes me uneasy, but prompts me to stay awake, to remember what is essential.

To make drawings, I incise white marks into black surfaces. Called sgraffito, my drawing method originated in 13th century German wall decoration and later was used to embellish ceramics in 16th century Italy. This method of humble artistic origins, now helps me cast light across scenes cobbled from myriad circumstances, times and places. My drawings on panel are executed with x-acto knives, dental tools, fiber glass brushes, and steel wool. Panels are undercoated with a mixture of kaolin and acrylic medium and overlaid with washes of India ink. When additional layers of illusory depth are needed, I rework sections of the drawings with acrylic inks and paints.