Ed Templeton: 87 Drawings - Images featured in Ed Templeton: 87
Drawings cover a period of more than thirty years, from 1990 to 2021, and offer
a remarkable retrospective of the artist's intimate drawing style. Templeton
examines the studied boredom of adolescents and young adults, capturing the
specific personalities of his subjects while documenting the visual identity
born from the distinctive skate and surf culture of California
from the South. He knows this culture well, having grown up there before becoming
professional skateboarder (and world champion), contemporary artist and
photographer. His subjects are often drawn like portraits, their faces
being depicted with striking detail that contrasts with the lines
simple of their bodies. Although they project a cold indifference, they are
celebrated by the artist, whose affection for them recognizes and praises their style
subversive. As Kim Hastreiter notes in the preface, its "secret ingredient
is empathy." \n \nThe collection also includes more drawings
personal. There are eight drawings by his wife and collaborator, Deanna, a
self-portrait and a drawing of the two of them. Fourteen of these drawings are made on
old hotel letter paper, which helps to further anchor the drawings
in a place, or even in time. His grandfather collected a large
part of this writing paper; Templeton's use of it adds a thread
driver to Southern California culture and his own life. Raised by
his grandparents, Templeton credits his grandmother with raising him
exposed to the art that would "enrich his life immensely," and he closes the book
with a portrait of her at the end of her life.
