Week #8, Shown at the Betty Parsons Gallery IV

Rose Island Reef, 1975, Oil pigment in fiberglass, 40" x 30 ¾”

After several biennial solo shows with the Betty Parsons Gallery (BPG) in the late 1950s and early 1960s there was a long hiatus before Dusti Bongé once again had a solo show there. Largely precipitated by factors that were affecting the operation of her gallery, Betty Parsons regretfully had to significantly curtail her roster of artists. But then, in 1975, Dusti had one more solo show at the gallery.

Once again, the work that was featured showcased Dusti’s never-ending quest to always try new things, whether materially, compositionally, experientially, or stylistically. Thus, she wound up with a show of exceedingly unique artworks, to wit, what she termed her Window Paintings, made with fiberglass.

The idea behind these Window Paintings was largely inspired by her earlier years of living in the city. Given that many apartments in New York have windows that face the building’s inner light shaft or some equivalent dismal scene, beyond some scant light, they certainly do not offer any aesthetic experience. This always bothered Dusti. So, many years later, she came up with a solution.

In the 1970s Dusti learned how to work with fiberglass from a boat-builder friend of hers. She started creating colorful panels, kind of like fiberglass canvasses, by adding dry pigments to the fiberglass resin as it was setting. These pigments were applied in different abstract compositions much like her other artwork. And thus, Window Paintings were born. These specially made paintings were a way to still let the light shine in while letting it filter through the abstract composition in the fiberglass, offering the viewer a unique, luminous painting.

When the show was mounted in the BPG there were not enough windows to showcase the paintings. Therefore, many of them were ultimately framed in a shallow box with a light source from behind shining through.