Lauren Simkin Berke: Notes on Gesture

A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Notes on Gesture, an exhibition by Alum Member Lauren Simkin Berke, featuring a new body of works on paper. This is their sixth solo show at A.I.R. Gallery.

Notes on Gesture marks a shift in Berke’s practice, both in scale and technique, while maintaining drawing as the organizing structure. Over the last few years Berke has been drawing more with thick lines, using both improvisational and observational instincts. These drawings are done quickly, drawn with paint markers, requiring a full engagement of the artist’s hand, arm, and body, in contrast with the small movements they have used for the last twenty years, drawing with fine tipped mechanical pens and dip pens. The resulting works are artifacts of a practice of notation: capturing the essence of a moment with the ability to ignite a memory of experience, whether it be observed or imagined, exterior or interior.

The exhibition spans two years of Berke’s practice: improvisational drawings made through a process the artist calls “shapes into things,” observational drawings of their summer home, and a selection of handmade books. Ultimately, Notes on Gesture is about focusing on the core of things, letting go of the ego of youth, and waiting to see what emerges.

Lauren Simkin Berke is a Brooklyn-based visual artist and illustrator, drawing for clients such as Smithsonian Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, and the New York Times. In the context of most commercial work they are represented by Illustration Division. Berke is the author of Zine Making & Bookbinding: A Beginner’s Guide in 25 Projects, the illustrator for B is for Bibliophile by O.E. Zelmanovich, and they teach graduate and undergraduate illustration courses at FIT, SVA, and Parsons.