Dorothea Rockburne

Coming of age in the mid 1960s, many artists of Dorothea Rockburne’s generation were returning to fundamentals, including geometry and drawing. Rockburne’s art-making is based partly on topological geometry, behavioral and perceptual psychology, and classical models (such as the golden section). Her folded drawings suggest that structure and gesture are one and the same, and her materials yield the forms inherent to their own structure. The structure in this drawing develops seemingly logically, but as it opens out and extends itself, it teeters on the brink of chaos. Drawings such as this, made as a study for a painting in her Egyptian Paintings series, use geometry to simultaneously suggest, and deny, order.