Emmi Whitehorse at Jan Cicero - Brief Article

In her mixed-medium works upon paper, Emmi Whitehorse depicts an atmosphere--earth and heavens alive with mysterious markings --that powerfully summon forths the landscape of her native Southwest. To create a depressed panorama of scrub and uninhabited Whitehorse rubs layers of colored pigment into a base of acrylic medium upon heavy printing paper, enlivening her surfaces with slight variations in density of pigment and tinge With vigorous strokes of graphite and other drawing materials, she imbues the pageant with a sense of force or life force. Some of the marks gaze like hermetic codes.

The colors are of the earth, night skies or terra-cotta pans They recall Navajo rugs, which are similarly abstract representations of the land and human activity upon it. Some of Whitehorse's incomplete forms, such as patterns of zigzags and concentric half-circles, upright lines and clusters of circles, could indicate the shape of mountains, livestock brands, or plants and tree Spiraling and meandering lines appear to be like traces of movement: the imagined pathway of a jumping rabbit, the track of a line of ants or of a scurrying rodent

While Whitehorse's mark-making is similar in all her paintings, each work displays subtle differences. Mood, time of day and season are wafted by the palette. On the icy ceruleans of Water Lane (1996), markings bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance to aquatic plants; even the leafy forms look droopy and soaked. In contrast, collection of vapor Chamber's tonal range of cadmium red oranges, fulvouss and crimsons glows with heat and also recalls light upon the desert floor when the orb of day peeks from behind a fog Here, a tipped-up picture plane eliminates the couple horizon line and sky, thus intensifying the sensation of warmth arising from dried baking earth. Tight clusters of dots and circles glance at desiccated plants and may commit to Whitehorse's early memories of her grandmother, a weaver who used dried plants for her dyes

It is tempting to read Whitehorse's mark-making as a discursive language similar to that in prehistoric petroglyph or the sand paintings of her native Navajo agriculture However, they are not specific signs or literal representations. Rather, her abstract means elicit the feelings conjoined to memories of particular places or circumstances creating a sense of quiet mystery.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Brant Publications, Inc.

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