DEBUTANTS


AUSTRALIAN ART COLLECTOR
ISSUE 59, 2012

BY ASHLEY CRAWFORD

LET US - graphite pencil and carbon pencil on paper, 2011

LET US - graphite pencil and carbon pencil on paper, 2011

DEBUTANTES: BECC ORSZAG
Born: 1986
First commercial gallery solo exhibition:
July 2012, Dianne Tanzer Gallery + Projects, Melbourne

 

Sometimes it just happens. Becc Orszag only finished studying at RMIT last year and it didn’t take long for the commercial galleries to come running. Orszag, wisely, cast around for advice and agreed to join Dianne Tanzer’s stable of artists. (Indeed, she has already appeared in Australian Art Collector, included in a feature on emerging talent in 2011.) She is now preparing for her first commercial gallery solo exhibition.

The appeal of Orszag’s work is transparent and lies in her skill as a draughtsman. For her, drawing, is a “knee jerk response to the over saturation of technical trickery” stemming from a background in graphic arts. “In the end, the aspect of digital art that bothered me most was that I could not touch it. It was not real. I could not feel its texture, or smell the graphite on the paper or any of the other stupid romantic ideas that keep me drawing with my hands. In the end I just wanted to use my hands, get them dirty.”

Orszag admits that the resurgence of drawing is something of a trend. “Just like using Photoshop and specific aesthetic finishes and filters is a trend. It is a reaction to too much technology. Having said that though, drawing existed long before digital technology did. It is not new. So it too will probably become over saturated, but that will only help to wean out the groupies … And there will always be those pushing for honesty and those who see its raw beauty. I think that honesty is a quality in art making that only drawing can achieve.”