Light Drawings

Troika’s Light Drawings encompass multiple series, which all rely on variations of the same mark-making process, the burning of paper with an electric charge. The singed lines are burnt through paper as a current tries to overcome the material’s resistance, where the paper was saturated with water. All
emerge from their play with controlling processes that are, inherently, beyond control. The organic, irregular forms seen in ‘Fahrenheit 451’ (2012), ‘Path of Most Resistance’ (2012), ‘Path of Least Resistance’ (2013), ‘Delta’ (2013) and ‘Cartography of Control’ (2014) are made by burning paper with an electric charge, which manifests as intricate repeat-basic patterns.

The results evokes rivers, tributaries, oxbow lakes, blood vessels, veins, capillaries, and plant roots, the patterns of which all stemming from the same genetic law. In ‘Delta’, the charred pathway distinctly assumes the patterning of a river delta, while ‘Path of Most Resistance’ forces the charge to assume a circular pattern, one of the first figures of abstraction, in an act reminiscent of the Opera Contra Natura of Promethean myths.