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These charcoal drawings by London-based artist Reece Jones are truly stunning. Having been recently exposed to the challenges of drawing with charcoal via Daniela, I have a newfound appreciation for the medium and these are exemplary examples of it at its best.

Presently, Jones has an exhibit at All Visual Arts in London titled Control Test. These natural landscapes all include a large rectangle of light a la James Turrell or Doug Wheeler. The contrast of the natural forms and the geometric unnatural lightform is very striking, from shape to the glowing white amidst the generally dark and heavy charcoal.

From the text on the gallery’s website by Richard Dyer:
…The rectangle of light hovers in the centre of the pictures, like a ghost of the blank paper before a single mark is made. Optically the intervention of the luminous shape operates as a doorway through the space of the sublime landscape. Doorways, gateways, archways, are transitional spaces, liminal thresholds between one order of existence and another, here abstracted to a featureless geometric shape; the space to which the threshold opens up is free to be populated by the speculative imagination of the viewer. It is at once an opening into a void and a solid object or barrier; it dominates the landscape, an almost sentient presence, like an inversion of the black rectangular ‘sentinel’ in 2001: A Space Odyssey…

You can see more of Reece Jones’ work here and here, or visit the London exhibit up through April 21, 2012. The bottom four works are actually watercolor and polymer varnish, not charcoal, but lovely as well.

via all visual arts

Connecticut-born and based artist Bryan Nash Gil works with nature and found objects to create sculptures, drawings, and prints. He has just published a book of his relief prints from cross sections of felled trees titled Woodcut.

From Princeton Architectural Press:
Gill reveals the sublime power locked inside their arboreal rings, patterns not only of great beauty, but also a year-by-year record of the life and times of the fallen or damaged logs. The artist rescues the wood from the property surrounding his studio and neighboring land, extracts and prepares blocks of various species—including ash, maple, oak, spruce, and willow—and then prints them by carefully following and pressing the contours of the rings until the intricate designs transfer from tree to paper.

Simply beautiful.

via NYTimes T Magazine

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Chinese artist Zhang Yu has been working on his Fingerprint Series, in intervals, since the early 1990s. These paintings become a meditative process by repeatedly pressing his right index finger on rice paper with ink. Zhang limits his colors to shades of red, white and black, leaving thousands of overlapping fingerprints that create a unique infinite visual effect. He has created paintings, installations, books and performances with this process, making him a key figure in contemporary experimental ink painting.

You can see more of Zhang Yu’s work here and here.

via Da Xiang Art Space