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Pencil Box Series

 

2000-2006

 

Mixed media, carved pencils and painted boxes made out of pencil graphite drawing on 

handmade paper 
10" - 30" high

 

In the early 1990's, Böröcz started to work with pencils. He carved single ones into figures, keeping some of the color and brand name on their painted "skin". For larger compositions, he glued together numerous pencils and carved them as blocks. 

 

Pencil Boxes was the final series in his totemic and humorous engagement with this object. The figures appear more complex, becoming larger and appearing in groupings. They are presented living in rooms built from pencils, and through their windows the viewer could see cityscapes: detailed graphite drawings about the life of the pencil man in a pencil world. Between the years 2000 to 2006, Böröcz created over 50 of these artworks. 

 

 

 

"The prosaic lead pencil, a tool often used in making art, becomes art itself in the hands of Andras Borocz, a Hungarian-born wizard whose penchant for pencils has led him to make lively tableaus in which they star. In boxes constructed of glued-together pencil bodies, he presents tall pencil figures of Giacometti-like thinness with carved faces topped by eraser hats. Their activities allude to traditional art subjects like playing games and studio activities, but some of them touch on the surreal. 

In ''Cardplayers'' two pencil personages game at a hand-carved, miniature round table on which, by way of counterpoint, an ordinary pencil lies. The action gets wilder in ''Knife Thrower,'' where one figure targets another, pinned to a round board with his arms outstretched to form a cross. In a third, ''Centaur/Woman With Fan,'' a half-man, half-horse figure regards a woman seated jauntily atop a tall brick column as she plays with a fan. The walls of each box are enlivened by tiny but readable drawings presumably done by the occupants. 

…Magical is the word for Mr. Borocz's work. He is a master of the playful and the precious, but also a robust craftsman. “

—By GRACE GLUECK 
NY Times: December 20, 200
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