Eurydice n. 5 1994

Bracha Ettinger made this painting, *Eurydice n. 5,* with mixed media on paper. The paper looks like it was pulled from a book, maybe a prayer book. It’s got Hebrew and French on it. Looking at this painting, I'm wondering about the kind of searching, shifting, and maybe even erasing that Ettinger did. It looks like a long process of adding and taking away. Do you think the artist was trying to get at something that wasn’t so easy to reach? Some of the marks are light, almost washed out, and others are dark and intense, like the bold horizontal band of purple. I love the way the purple meets the ghostly figures above. They seem to emerge from the depths, like a memory or a dream. The artist teases something out of the depths. I can imagine Ettinger in the studio, pushing and pulling the paint around, responding to what emerges, listening for a glimpse of Eurydice. And then, like Orpheus, sharing that glimpse with us.