Land and Sea
Evelyn Statsinger blurred the boundaries between abstraction and representation, creating complex, visionary, and often fantastical compositions as a response to the world around her. Although Statsinger’s distorted forms and imaginary worlds brought her into the orbit of the Chicago artist groups the Monster Roster and the Imagists, she made work that was profoundly individual. Land and Sea is a remarkable example of her intense process and precise skill, on a grand scale. Nearly nine feet long, the composition contains geometric and figurative forms, each filled with hatched, cross-hatched, and fanciful patterns. An organic field of interlocking tubes reminiscent of fossils or marine invertebrates populates the mysterious terrain. The dense network of intricate, interwoven marks reveals surprising elements, as if viewed under magnification.
Artwork Details
- Title: Land and Sea
- Artist: Evelyn Statsinger (American, New York 1927–2016 Chicago)
- Date: 1951
- Medium: Marker ink and crayon on paper mounted on canvas
- Dimensions: 35 1/2 in. × 8 ft. 10 1/2 in. (90.2 × 270.5 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 2023
- Object Number: 2023.137
- Rights and Reproduction: © Statsinger Cohen Foundation
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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