Safe-T-Gallery is pleased to present The Fragrance Grifters, an exhibition of drawings by Hilary Lorenz, at its new location, 111 Front St., in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. The show will be Lorenz’s first solo exhibition at the gallery and will include a dozen pieces from a new series of large drawings made with various water-based media on paper. Eschewing many traditional painting techniques Lorenz favors complex patterns composed of carefully drawn lines, circles, dots and glyphs. The strokes are grouped to form larger topographical systems, which in turn act as maps charting the movement of other lines and marks. In essence each work becomes an multi-layered engram of complex and often poignant sets of memories and thoughts.
  The Fragrance Grifters is a radical change from Lorenz’s earlier work, work that investigated both science and the pseudo-sciences through the rigorous use of external systems. These new drawings emerge through purely internal processes of time, sequence, and topography, and are based on her own silent observations of patterns in her life. These patterns, derived from counting people, or setting time constraints, feed her drawings, creating abstract and intuitive time-lines of space and memory.
Lorenz states, “I use both counting and repetition to demarcate boundaries in my drawings. I count my steps every day as I walk, I count the time it takes to go up in an elevator, and I count as I lay down each watery brushstroke. My drawings are counting maps with lush topographic surfaces. The topographical nature of my work evolves from my subconscious as a constant reminder of the boundaries and borders of the divided streets and neighborhoods of New York City.”
  Lorenz’s drawings were the inspiration for “The Fragrance Grifters,” a poem by Elaine Equi, who devised the name, and with whom Lorenz is collaborating on a limited edition artist’s book that will be available at the exhibition.
  Hilary Lorenz received her MFA from the University of Iowa in printmaking and multimedia. She has had numerous group and solo exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia . Most recently she has exhibited at the Taiwan Museum of Art, 2004; the Frans Masereel Centrum, Belgium, 2004; and the Hunterdon Museum of Art, New Jersey, 2002.. Her science-inspired artwork has been reviewed in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Art in America, and Art on Paper.