Week #26, Grids & Lines IV

Dusti Bongé, Untitled (Black and White Inset Squares), c. 1965, ink on paper, 15” x 21”

This week marks us officially being halfway through the year. Kudos to all of us for making it this far.

This week’s artwork is another one of those grid-adjacent compositions. where Dusti Bongé relies on using just horizontal and vertical lines to create a geometric arrangement. Again, here the lines never intersect or cross one another. Instead, they form a rectangular spiral that kind of resembles a maze.

Starting at the bottom right, a vertical line ascends toward the top right corner,  turns 90 degrees to the left to continue along the top edge of the paper, then down the left side, and ultimately toward the right again. This repeats itself four times in ever smaller increments until Dusti reaches an endpoint to the line just below a strategically placed black dot at the center of the composition.

Note that this “center” is not literally the middle point of the work, it is rather the focal point of the spiral, and occurs distinctly off center. This suggests a hint of a golden ratio approach to create a logarithmic spiral, where the core toward which the spiral moves is called the limiting point. And the golden ratio, whether Dusti is alluding to it consciously or not, just happens to be one of the most spectacular mathematical phenomena. Not only does it occur in nature, but it has inspired philosophers, mathematicians, and artists for centuries.

As to the actual lines themselves, Dusti occasionally interrupts the void of the spiral with a short horizontal or vertical dash connecting the main lines. Meanwhile, the weight of the brush strokes varies greatly, from almost solid to barely there, even though their width does not change. The resulting variation in the density of the marks lends an oscillating sense of depth to the work. The lines seem to be receding or coming forward alternately, as they move from the outer edge toward the center of the composition.