Rupture & Release: drawing as an act of embodiment features new works by Anne Allen, Dorota Borowa and Joey Fauerso, artists who are pushing the boundaries of what is understood by drawing. Breaking away from traditional drawing practices which rest with close observation and illustrative intention, the artists create drawings through processes of improvisation and collaboration with other people, built and natural environments, and selected materials. Unpredictability and loss of control result in drawings that are becoming, undetermined and free; pleasure through line is nourished by uncertainty and serendipity. Using fabric, paper and video, Allen, Borowa and Fauerso experiment with mark-making as an act of live and residual performance, and as such, their work presents as a form of embodied drawing. Aspects of scale, movement and theatricality are juxtaposed with discrete lines made by cuts, tears, folds, shadows and the edges of collaged elements which reveal small physical gestures.

Anne Allen’s interest in natural and human-made patterns sits at the core of her practice. In new work she combines photographic and video stills, with imagery from botanic samples and Works Progress Administration maps from the Dust Bowl era. Collaged and printed on fabric, the imagery is then reworked with a further process of drawing, cutting, tearing and collage, as Allen collapses time and space in soft, ethereal folds. Plant still-lives become metaphoric studies of biodiversity and depictions of shelterbelts - - a traditional practice of planting rows of trees and shrubs around farms to block the wind and prevent soil erosion - - reveal generations of ecological and familial care. The suggestion of fragility, resilience and precarity in Allen’s work poetically reflects contemporary climate anxiety.

Dorota Borowa works with water as an active collaborator to make drawings, mixing it with oil paint, ink or watercolor, and creating conditions that allow the water to naturally shape the work. Sometimes this involves submerging paper in a tank or exposing it to the movement of the sea. Upon installation in an exhibition, the artist responds to the water gestures and extends the drawing into architectural space as a ‘performance’ or live practice. The unpredictability of the process allows Borowa to explore limits of control, intervention, destruction and, ultimately, acceptance. At Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, Borowa will create a new site-specific drawing installation that unfolds into the gallery space while also intervening in its architecture. Positioned at the entrance/exit of the space, the drawing will occupy an in-between space where the interior and exterior become entangled.

Joey Fauerso presents two bodies of work that connect through time and collaboration. Drawing Battles (2014-15) is a series of short collaborative videos Fauerso made with family and friends. Breaking down the separation between art and family life allowed space for improvisation, and elements of exchange, interaction and loss of control are captured in the process of drawing to reveal a gestural language situated in touch and care. Twelve years later, Fauerso explored this strategy of performance again. In a Classroom (2026), which includes video and sculptural drawings, was created in the former Oisawa Elementary School during a recent artist residency at the ACRUS project in Moriya, Japan. The title of the work -- inspired by a 1971 poem from Adrienne Rich -- considers the tension between a position of logic and rules in contrast to creativity and imagination. Fauerso explores this duality through a series of activities in collaboration with her sons, which involve creating and destroying, while embracing accidents and imperfections in drawing. Ultimately for Fauerso the classroom becomes a stage where modest materials function as props to reveal the physical and sometimes humorous nature of mark-making.

Artist Bios

Anne Allen is an established visual artist with three decades of experience in media including drawing, painting, printmaking and metals. Her works explore her ongoing interest in pattern, both natural and manmade. Recent themes in her work include those derived from nature; entropy and debris, eroded asphalt patterns, beach detritus, flood water debris and patterns discovered while running and hiking. In addition, Allen is an accomplished arts administration professional with more than twenty-five years experience in public art project management, art museum management and curatorial work. Well versed in contemporary art and public art trends, she is an advocate for the arts as a catalyst for economic development, and the arts ability to strengthen and enrich daily life in our communities. More of Allen's work here. 

Dorota Borowa is a Polish artist based in Ireland. She exhibits both nationally and internationally, with solo exhibitions including Grilse Gallery, Killorglin (2025), Slendzinski Gallery, Poland (2025), and the forthcoming Uillinn: West Cork Arts Center (2027) as well as group exhibitions such as Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda (2026), Department of Modern Art, National Museum in Gdansk, Poland (2025), Arctic Circle Assembly, Harpa, Reykjavik (2024) and has been awarded a number of AiR programmes (e.g. Arctic Circle Residency; Uillinn: West Cork Arts Center, PS2, Belfast). Her practice has been supported by the Irish Arts Council (Agility Award), South Dublin and Kerry County Councils as well as the Polish Ministry of Culture. Dorota's works have been featured in IMAGE Interiors Magazine, Visual Artist News Sheets and Bloomers Magazine. Her paintings are in the collection of the National Museum in Gdansk in Poland. More of Borowa's work here. 

Joey Fauerso is an artist and 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in the Fine Arts. Her work consists mostly of painting, video, installation and performance addressing issues of gender, humor and family. Recently her work has been exhibited at the Blanton Museum of Art, Ruby City Museum, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, MASS MoCA, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Drawing Center in New York. Fauerso has been the recipient of multiple grants and residencies, including a 2025 residency at Arcus Project in Moriya, Japan, a 2020 Joan Mitchell Grant for Painters and Sculptors, a 2021 Sustainable Arts Foundation grant, the RAIR artist in residence grant, Yaddo, MacDowell, and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Fauerso is a Professor in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University, and lives with her family in San Antonio, Texas. More of Fauerso's work here.