Aerial to Infinity 1954

Dorothy Dehner made this etching, "Aerial to Infinity", sometime during her later years. I like the way she embraced the etching process, letting the lines breathe and dance. It looks like a landscape but then the horizon keeps shifting. The magic of this piece is how Dehner uses the starkness of the etching lines to create this delicate but powerful sense of depth. The lines aren’t just describing something, they’re creating the space itself, like a scaffolding of thoughts. Take, for instance, the dark, almost solid, bars against the delicate lines, it feels a bit like a musical score, where the empty spaces are as important as the notes. Thinking about other artists, I am reminded of Agnes Martin's quiet grids, but Dehner’s got this added layer of...almost controlled chaos. It’s a lovely reminder that art doesn’t have to spell everything out for you, it can just offer a space to wander.