Ancestors 1953

Dorothy Dehner made this etching, called 'Ancestors', sometime in the middle of the last century; and it’s a real dance of marks! The whole piece is a tight composition of figures, or maybe they're objects, all squished together, playing with positive and negative space. Everything’s outlined with this bold, graphic line. I love how the black ink sits on the page, slightly raised, giving it a tactile quality. There’s this one area, just to the left of center, where a bulbous shape is connected to a series of vertical lines, almost like a strange instrument. It's so playful and odd, yet fits perfectly within the overall structure. It reminds me a bit of some of the early work of Louise Bourgeois, that same interest in primitive forms and the exploration of personal mythology. It’s a conversation, you know? We're all just riffing off each other across time, trying to make sense of this crazy world through shapes and lines. It’s open-ended. It’s up to you to find your own story in it.