Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
Tragedy, horror and everyday racism are countered with fearless grace by the American artist in this five-decade retrospective
There is a painting in this beautiful yet devastating survey of the American artist Howardena Pindell that looks, at first, like old-fashioned pointillism. Thousands of coloured dots quicken and glow across a large abstract canvas. The predominant colour is rust, suggesting some kind of urban landscape – unless, perhaps, this is the umber of mud or soil. Slate blue creeps in, like autumn mist, but there are hints of ripening orange, and some kind of strange rumble in the distance.
The more you look, the more the riddles gather: what is behind, and what before? What is the season, and which kind of place? The tiny circles do not appear to be brushmarks, with their muzzy softness, so how are they made? The painting has all the overtones of figuration without holding an image. It is a great abstract mystery.
