Buffalo, NY
Megan Scheffer draws and sculpts lines. That may sound simple but it’s not at all. What’s in a line? The most basic of structural elements, lines trace the alphabet, grow from our heads and skin, divide traffic, raise buildings, ground trees. They appear straightforward but do complicated, life-sustaining and life-controlling work. Armstrong’s lines model such structures less in how they look than how they function. In “A Reductionistic Anachronism,” an unfathomable complex of white lines tangles against a black ground in a grid of eighteen meticulously interconnected ink drawings. In “Resilience,” an infinite number of downy dandelion seeds cluster together, their pale fronds accumulating into an inseparable mass. It must have taken immense patience to ink those lines and pluck those seeds. It must have necessitated, too, an exceptional ability to sense and manage the ordered chaos that makes up our world. Armstrong’s lines bewilder, and they are alive.
—Lori Waxman 11/12/16 10:54 AM