Wind Study (The Hour of the Day of the Month of the Season)

2015

burnt adhesive and graphite on Arches paper

67 x 45 in. / 170 x 114 cm.

The mystical, grid-like drawings titled Wind Study (the hour of the day of the month of the season) evoke neural networks, constellation maps and ancient navigation stick charts. Kallat layered an inflammable liquid, one line at a time, over intuitively drawn graphite lines and set them aflame outdoors in slow, successive acts of simultaneous activation and annihilation. Left thus to the impulses of nature, the strict geometry of the graphite drawings was disrupted and overrun by fire and wind. The wind left its mark in ash, deposited in the direction in which it travelled at the moment of incineration. The drawings that resulted from this interaction—what Kallat calls the “transcript of a conversation” between fire and wind—are snapshots of all the atmospheric flows that occurred in the moments when the lines were set alight;  documents of a performative, private ritual by the artist.