22- "The Wizard (I)” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - charcoal on paper - 11"x15" - Feb 2016 - (available) Is there magic in the world around us? This drawing began one of my favorite series: “The Wizard.” This drawing is where it all began. It started with this abstracted, line-drawing reference to still-life objects. But this composition has taken on a life of its own, something I call, “The Wizard.” Many of my paintings and drawings take on this “subject matter,” whatever it is. It’s even hard for me to say whether it is an object or a landscape or what. In this drawing, you can still see the outline of a toaster. But in most of the works that follow, there are no identifiable aspects like that. For me, this drawing is about the movement of shapes and lines around the composition, even though it still also holds a type of structure. Reality, the reality we see, the reality as it is given to us, is only a jumping off point. There is a greater magical world, all around us, inside or beyond the things we encounter everyday. Sometimes I call that “God.” But sometimes using that term is too loaded with rules that we think we know or that have been given to us. Like we might think about God as a person or even as male. It is clear to me that “God” is gender non-binary: personal, but beyond our normal constructs. There is magic all around us. Not magic in the type that we might manipulate or control, but a deeper mystery, a complicated be-ing-ness swirling around us. I think “The Wizard” starts to get at that.
