Although deeply grounded in drawing, J. Parker Valentine’s diverse practice spans film, video, photography, collage, and sculpture. By pushing the limits of mark making, the many possibilities of narrative and image are encountered and explored. The drawn line exceeds its supports and materials, extending beyond the two-dimensional edges of material to something more sculptural. In the same way that Valentine uses erasure to create an image, the negative space or ephemeral material within a space, such as shadow and light, becomes part of the work.

This artist book includes a selection of images—a documentation of exhibited works and those in process—that offer a sense of Valentine’s approach to working, which gestures toward abstraction and improvisation. For this book, many images have been adapted, reoriented, and/or manipulated. Also included are three essays that investigate Valentine’s process, considering work that has emerged from her previous projects, residencies, and exhibitions to date. Mary Ceruti’s essay describes Valentine’s lasso sculptures as oscillating between drawing and sculpture, and discusses the suggestive narratives that play out in sculptural space. Suzanne Cotter touches on Valentine’s interrogation of the integrity of the medium of drawing and its limits, as well as the transformative nature of her work, as eluding any static reading. Describing the development of Valentine’s work in situ, Christiane Maria Schneider considers how each of the works presented are affected by the relationships they enter into, continually moving between the material and immaterial.

Valentine was born in Austin, Texas, in 1980. She was artist in residence at Artpace, San Antonio, in 2013. She has had solo shows at Supportico Lopez, Berlin (2010, 2012); Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf (2012); Taka Ishii, Kyoto (2010); Peep-Hole, Milan (2010); and Lisa Cooley, New York (2008, 2010). She lives and works in New York.

This book is published on the occasion of J. Parker Valentine’s exhibition “Topo” at Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany, February 14–June 29, 2014.