Week #48, Magic Markers I

Untitled (Red Rectangle with Brown Stripes), 1983, felt tip pen on paper, 8” x 5”

As we start the final stretch of the year, let’s take a look at a series of works on paper featuring felt tip pens, aka magic markers as the medium. In these pieces, which Dusti Bongé created in 1983, she purposefully makes use of a very limited color palette. She also employs an abstract approach that is more structured formal, with clearly defined, often rectilinear, shapes.

Given the sparse color use, the arrangement of the distinct elements becomes more salient and important. In this work, except for the few black outlines that define the basic shapes, Dusti uses only red and brown, two colors that don’t particularly enhance one another. 

There are three rectangles, two wide ones and one narrow one, that make up the structural framework of this piece. The wide rectangles are horizontally oriented and stacked, slightly off kilter, on top of each other with the smaller of the two on the bottom. They float against a sea of brown and are themselves patterned with brown, vertical stripes. This makes them appear open and light despite the dark color.

Meanwhile, the narrow rectangle is positioned vertically, overlapping both the others and rendered in bright, solid red. It is much smaller than the other two but its position and color cause it to dominate the overall composition.

The three are all centered along the vertical axis, but not quite so horizontally. The striped rectangles are placed closer to the top than the bottom of the sheet. And the red one in turn extends further into the top rectangle than into the bottom. There is also nothing grounding the trio. The combined effect of this is that the whole arrangement seems to be hovering against the dark brown backdrop and almost ascending to the top. Magic indeed.