Week #31, Ideograms I

Untitled (Black Abstract Composition with Orange and Yellow) 1950, ink & watercolor on paper, 17" x 19". 

Happy August! This month we will look at some of Dusti Bongé's works on paper that are currently on display in our 30th Anniversary Show. These are all from around 1949 - 1950.

Each of these works has a marvelous mixture of stylistic qualities, somewhat surrealist, yet also abstract, with a distinct east-Asian inspired calligraphic twist. Against a wash of colors, these pieces all feature ideographic forms in stark black. The ideograms may or may not convey meaning in some yet to be discovered language.

This week’s work has a centralized form that presents as somewhat symmetrical. However, one quickly realizes that is not quite so. Set against bright yellow and orange, with a subdued blue wash at the bottom, this ideogram has two simple circular forms and a few straight lines. A bottom circle is topped by a horizontal mark, separating it from a semicircle hovering slightly off-center above it. The semicircle opens up at the top allowing the yellow wash to spill out. Connecting the two circular elements is a line extending vertically from the top of the circle and intersecting the half circle. This vertical is placed just left of center on the page but right of center in the semicircle. Finally, there is a thin vertical line by itself in the lower right quadrant. 

As such, there is in fact no bilateral symmetry at all. Instead, we have an engaging, well-balanced form that is activated by the fact that its parts each shift slightly off its vertical axis, never lining up perfectly. 

An additional intrigue in this work is that Dusti signed it both in the bottom right and upside down in the top left, thus ultimately leaving the decision of its vertical orientation up to the viewer. Here it is in both orientations.