Robert Mayhew writes article on Figure Series

Here is drawing 5 in its final form.  My friend and former colleague, Robert Mayhew, took a look at my press release and re-wrote it.  Robert is an Art History doctoral candidate at Duke University.  I cannot express my thanks enough.  Here is his article. 

In the exhibition, Weight, Bosbyshell explores the figure and its role in the context of today’s pressure-cooker society.




We all live under tremendous pressures. We live under the pressure to consume, the pressure to provide, and the pressure to succeed. We bear these weights both as individuals and collectively as a society. Educators, for example, are pushed to be subject experts, leaders, classroom disciplinarians, administrators, and even entertainers. No matter who we are, we also pressure ourselves to advance in our careers in addition to being perfect children, parents, spouses, and friends. In other words, we pressure ourselves to have it all.



In the midst of these emotional weights, the visual arts can be a relieving force against these pressures. In his new exhibition Weight, Wil Bosbyshell explores this theme with the most fundamental and challenging subject that artists can depict: the human body. As the most basic module for understanding, light, shadow, line and form, the human figure is not only a standard building-block to the practice of the visual arts, but it is also a powerful expression of humankind’s most universal experiences. These two dynamics are clear in Bosbyshell’s work. With his crisp and confident lines, in this series of pencil drawings, he successfully renders the human form stressed under unseen and oppressive weights. Using the body as a metaphor, he simultaneously expresses the multiple pressures of life with elegant and graceful lines. This inherent tension has stunning results.



While Bosbyshell has drawn and painted the figure throughout his career, he has never undertaken drawings of this size and scale. The principal drawings of the exhibit are six feet in height and three feet wide, drawn with pencil and white charcoal. Each figure supports a rock above her head. Some figures shoulder the weight easily; others are drawn as if the weight will soon crush them. The exhibit also includes Bosbyshell’s preparatory pencil and pastel sketches.