Subterranea: Drawings by Rick Gooding
For Subterranea, architect Rick Gooding has created more than 70 meticulous pencil drawings, each depicting an imaginary underground realm. Winding tunnels and labyrinthine passageways are rendered by hand, resolving into dense, intricate patterns.
“Subterranea began with a 30-second sketch on each page of a 90-page notebook. I decided to develop each of them into a larger scale drawing using the sketch as inspiration. With only a loose straightedge & pencil, I would immediately start to hard line the drawings, without any measuring, improvising as I went. Shading is done with only a 314 Eagle Draughting Pencil or ground 314 graphite rubbed on with my finger.”
In an era of digital representation, Gooding celebrates the precise and beautiful craft of manual drafting. He works without rulers or measuring devices and carefully constructs his drawings using the most basic architectural drafting tools. Gooding works exclusively in black and white. The simple palette occasionally produces Escher-esque qualities. Subversive flips of figure/ground and slips in optical logic confuse the readings of these rigorously constructed drawings.
These eerie illustrations inspire comparisons to Aldo Rossi’s stark linework, as well as to Surrealist painter Giorgio De Chirico’s forlorn cityscapes, in which the urban realm is inhabited as often by headless statuary as by human citizens. Gooding’s imagery evokes engine works and machine constructs, echoing power plant architecture as much as maze-like buildings for human habitation. Yet, however provocative, Gooding’s spaces are ultimately inaccessible.
Subterranea: Drawings by Rick Gooding first premiered at Woodbury School of Architecture’s WEDGE Gallery in January 2012.
Drawing 84
15” x 18” 2019
Drawing 85
15” x 18” 2019
Drawing 86
15” x 18” 2019
Drawing 87
15” x 18” 2019
Drawing 88
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 89
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 90
22” x 30” 2019
Drawing 91
22” x 30” 2019
Drawing 92
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 93
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 94
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 95
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 97
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 98
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 99
22” x 30” 2020
Drawing 100
22” x 30” 2021
Drawing 101
22” x 30” 2021
Drawing 102
22” x 30” 2021