Week #43, Hello Yellow IV

Untitled (Blue, Purple and Yellow abstract), 1991, watercolor on joss paper, 4” x 5”.

Our last example of works that feature golden-yellow tones of autumn is one from Dusti Bongé’s final series of joss papers she created in 1991. This is the last year of her long, storied career for which we have any works on record. They are a testament to the fact that she was an indomitable artist, still creating work even though she was dealing with the effects of osteoporosis.

This work has a very different mood and glow then the previous three works with yellow that we looked at (see below). In each of those works, the golden yellow presence was deep, yet bright and brilliantly juxtaposed to swaths or elements of deep blue. The whole tone of this work is significantly softer even though it still presents the yellow in some relation to the blue.

This joss paper painting features four colors, yellow, violet, blue, and gray, all rendered with a muted, watery quality. It has two narrow rectangular strips of silver foil, rather than the usual single square of foil prevalent in many traditional joss papers. One rectangle of foil is just barely of center, and a larger one is off to its right side. **

The piece is composed mainly of vertical, broad, yet gentle, brush strokes. One violet line and some of minor gray marks flow through this vertical rhythm at slight diagonal angles. Starting from the right, the golden yellow forms the broadest continuous swath of color before the violet, blue, and gray start to create a linear pattern. This yellow field covers the entire silver foil rectangle rendering it slightly golden. At the center of the whole, overlapping the second rectangle is one random oval mark with a tail. Two bright yellow accents complete the whole.

** We shared a work earlier this year with two rectangular strips of foil. At the time, I thought it meant that Dusti made use of some collage elements in the composition, cutting a square piece of the joss paper foil into smaller rectangles. However, it's also possible that she scraped of some of the foil off to create two rectangles. Or, she may have used a new type of joss paper, since traditional joss papers are available in multiple shapes and sizes.