As part of their 75th Anniversary celebration, SFMOMA commissioned British artist Ewan Gibbs to make a series of “urban portraits” of San Francisco based on snapshots the artist took last year.  Addressing the delicate, pixellated, hand-rendered portraits, SFMOMA curator Henry Urbach said, “…they hover between photography and drawing, between the documented and the half remembered.”  The 18 drawings that comprise Gibbs’ first solo museum exhibition are on view until June 27, 2010.  Daily Serving’s Bean Gilsdorf talked with Gibbs before he flew back to England.

Bean Gilsdorf: How long have you been drawing?

Ewan Gibbs: I started making the work that was the origin of this in 1993, when I was twenty. I came across this language based on knitting patterns and I knew then that this was the thing I was going to do.

BG: When you say “language based on knitting patterns”, what do you mean?

EG: Basically, I had been making paintings that were quite derivative of Lichtenstein: acrylic, flat color, black outline. I was very interested in interiors, but I just felt like it was all too derivative. I was almost paralyzed by the possibilities that were out there. And I just stopped doing anything—it’s a weird place to be, but typical of being a student—and then I found a book on knitting patterns where there’s a grid, and different marks determine what color [yarn] you use.

BG: And what was it that drew you to that?

EG: Well, it’s a functional language, but it can also be quite naturalistic. [In the patterns] they use a darker mark to describe darker areas. There was a practicality, it had another purpose other than as just a drawing. I had people make me needlepoints based on my drawings and I made a couple, as well.

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