Abacus

The show Abacus is a selection of drawings made by Tony Bragg between 2017 and 2023. The project began as an exploratory exercise intended to expand his personal propensities of what serial images could and should be.

The abacus is a self-contained object. Whether dust on a rectangular surface or a structured counting device, it is an orderly, visible array of possibilities that have solutions. With drawing there are no actual resolutions, but rather a visible struggle to marshal ideas and materials into images that sit adjacent to numbers and language; or rather images that trigger a less-than-verbal experience of looking.

Between math and marks there are innumerable iterations that can tell a story of time spent, actions undertaken, ideas exchanged, and experiences had. The world of Abacus is elusive, hazy, and odd, partly invented and partly invisible; all the while full of things seen, done, and encountered.