Howardena Pindell

Untitled

Untitled is part of a small but impactful group of works painted in the late 1960s by the artist, curator, teacher, and activist Howardena Pindell. Departing from the figurative painting that she developed as a student during the mid-1960s, Pindell devised a form of process-based abstraction, where the artist relies on regular and predetermined methods to create abstract images that are not reliant on their own gestures, whether deliberate or spontaneous. Pindell’s method consisted of first creating a stencil or printing screen by attaching together manila folders that she had previously dotted with hundreds of identical holes made with a hole-puncher. Afterward, she would place the stencil over the canvas and slide it across its surface as she sprayed it with different colors, creating a speckled and multi-colored polka-dot pattern. Free from any gestural traces that could be tied back to the artist’s “interiority” or “intention,” the paintings are at once mechanical and spontaneous. In Untitled, a drizzle of red and pink dots hovers above a blue background. Although completely abstract, the work is reminiscent of the Pointillist landscapes of the late 19th century.