Wholly Holy from God Love the Tragic Artist: Meg Cranston on the Life of Marvin Gaye

Meg Cranston

1995

A small ink-on-paper drawing where Meg Cranston uses spare, gestural black marks and scrawled text to playfully pair ideas of holiness with everyday, almost comic forms.

You first notice a loose, hand-drawn rectangular border containing four dark, irregular ovals that read like smudges or hovering bodies, while the lower edge shows a row of dripping strokes, a tiny wedge-shaped icon, and the handwritten words “HOLY HOLY,” all rendered in brisk, varied brushwork across warm, slightly creased paper.

The piece exemplifies a 1990s conceptual approach to drawing—using economy of mark, text, and tongue-in-cheek juxtapositions to collapse high and low references and treat drawing as a concise, idea-driven gesture.

Palette

Art Terms

Drawing Ink Conceptual art Contemporary art Gestural Abstraction

Exhibitions

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1946

Recent American Woodcuts and Prints by Marin, Hopper and Weber

1952

Rauschenberg, 34 Drawings for Dante's "Inferno" and Selections from...

1988

Handmade Paper Prints and Unique Works

1976