Tess Jaray: Early Drawings 1960–1980

When perspective is not used in the traditional Renaissance way, to create distance and represent reality correctly, it can create a field of spatial paradox that equates to distance and closeness in the mind.  Rather than creating the illusion of space, Jaray was playing with the idea of space, creating, in essence, a reference to an illusion. 

As her work moved deeper into the realm of metaphysics, her fascination with geometry becomes more overt.  Geometry, she has noted, helps us visibly transform “the seemingly infinite formlessness of the universe” into a world that is comprised of “an endless interconnected array of forms.” 

Both individually and collectively these are works concerned with the world's thresholds; those liminal and intermediate spaces that form the boundaries and places of transition which shape our experience of the world. But unlike the paintings these drawings are not themselves thresholds. There is no vanishing point for the eye to fix upon, no pierced, three dimensional surface to pass through. There is no distant horizon, no suggestion of a space beyond. Our gaze is unable to make its accustomed journey towards the reassuring safety of another solid object. Instead, we are held within a shimmering particle cloud of tiny marks that has no depth; caught in the threshold itself, in the space before the journey's end.