Everything in Her Bag #43, 1999
12 x 12, colored pencil on paperIntroducing Elise Engler -- an archeologist of the modern day.
She is a portraitistan inventory-taker an anthropologist, always looking with the greatest care at the physical objects in peoples daily lives and arranging these in visual lists akin to hieroglyphic tablets. The mundane and the unexpected, the personal and the occupational, and most recently, the physical aspects of political decisions, are all fodder for these extraordinary colored pencil drawings.
Everything in Her Bag #52, 2000 This all began when she set out to draw Everything I Own --- every single one of her 13,127 possessions (a daunting task, that would have propelled me to do a major clear out before starting!). That lead to a series of drawings of the contents of womens handbags (down to the cab receipts, every last coin, bobby pin, and stray Altoid).
Detail
About three years ago, when she began working on this series, she arrived on bicycle, with her portable studio packed neatly into her backpack, making a house call to my office where she drew my bag in situ (an accommodation for that fact that no one wants their handbag/briefcase out of their sight). Her goal is to complete 100 drawings of handbags, and then publish a book of them she is up to 67 and looking for more volunteers, so please contact her if you are interested.
The bag series then lead to the Thirty-Two Fridges and Fifty-Five Vehicles series
Vehicle #7, 2002, 36 x 12. 
Refrigerator #5 (office) 2000 32 x 12.And then to inventories less literal and more mental as below:
Some Things that Come to Mind about Angels. 2003
Detail.
Most recently, she has moved onto topics more poltical such as investigating the uses of our tax dollars.
Her uniformity of scale is very intriguing; each object being drawn roughly the same size, regardless if it is a truck, a set of keys, a lipstick or an aircraft carrier. Every thing is given equal weight.
Below, continuing the taxes theme, a drawing investigating the parks department and all the tools used to maintain Riverside Park.
Maintaining Riverside Park (detail) 2005
colored pencil on paperAnd here, drawing attention to where tax dollars are NOT going. Below is a drawing of the dilapidated chairs in the elementary school art room she teaches art (through a Studio in a School grant).
40 Chairs, Room 506, Art Room, PS 165
Colored pencil. 2003* You might be happy to hear that this drawing received the attention it quietly demanded a few months later the art room was outfitted with new chairs by the school.
Elise is represented by the Cynthia Broan Gallery -- where you can see more of her work in an on-line portfolio, including a new a series on the casualties of the war in Iraq.
Please feel free to contact Elise Engler with any questions about her work, or specifics regarding handbag commissions.
- Amy Chase
(not Maxwell)
Rather incredible!
I did something like this as a kid, when I drew a chart with color drawings of all the clothes in my closet. I wish I still had it.
w.o.w.
this all reminds me of an artist named bobby puleo and his work. i remember seeing a show of his in philly a few years ago, and it was this massive collection of found objects.
http://www.newimageartgallery.com/puleoboatwright.html
here's some posters from that show:
market east
a note, market east is the retail outlet (?) for the philly arts collective space1026.
boo:
http://www.marketeast.com/list.php?g=artists&me=16
there's something charming about these sketches and scary at the same time. Charming in the way a child methodically translates the world to the page and scary that each thing has the same weight!
Great stuff!
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