Week #24, Muted Palette III

Untitled (Black Curved Form on Blue Ground)), 1985, watercolor on paper, 9” x 6”

In this work, Dusti Bongé takes using sparse colors and a muted palette to a whole new level. Limiting herself to grayish-blue, gray, and black without much variation in their respective shades or tones, the work presents as almost stark, compared to much of her other work. And while I mentioned that last week’s work was somewhat enigmatic, this piece is even more mystifying.

Again, there are a few identifiable shapes. The dominant one here is the central, vessel-like, gray form with a deep, shadowy, dark interior. This central form almost fills the lower half of the work. From it a small cylindrical element, also gray, emerges slightly poking out above the upper edge of the “vessel.”. The cylinder is placed just left of center.

These two main elements are set against a dark blue ground. A few added black marks to the left and right of the work create a layer that seems to mediate between the dominant shapes and their evenly blue background. This is especially so for the thin, vertical marks to the left, which appear to emerge from the blue background only to disappear into the black void of the vessel in the foreground as they cascade down.

Perhaps this piece could be seen as a continuation of Dusti’s explorations of the Buddhist themes of the void and infinity, which she had started pursuing in the early 1980s. The work also hints at a closely related notion discussed in the Japanese novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows. This essay celebrates the beauty that exists in shadows, because the absence of light imparts a quality of subtlety, mystery, and depth to shadows that is superior to that of any shiny object. This work certainly possesses that sense of mystery.