Dimensions: support: 294 x 208 mm
Copyright: © Helena Almeida | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: This is a drawing by Helena Almeida, simply titled "Drawing (with pigment)". Editor: It looks spectral – the graphite and pigment give the hands a ghostly quality. What's she trying to convey here? Curator: Almeida's work frequently examines the female body and its relationship to space. The disembodied hands and the gradual accumulation of pigment, almost like a stain, speak to constraint, perhaps the limitations placed upon women's expression. Editor: The hands evoke offering, maybe of something heavy, burdensome. The black pigment could symbolize suppressed emotion or even mourning, carried across generations. Curator: I agree, it is a gesture – but is the offering voluntary or forced? Almeida’s work often questions such assumptions, subverting traditional roles. Editor: Ultimately, the image remains ambiguous, open to individual interpretation, much like the symbols in our own dreams. Curator: Yes, and it pushes us to consider the weight of history and experience.
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/almeida-drawing-with-pigment-t13458
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This is one of thirty-eight drawings in Tate’s collection by Almeida, all of which are rendered in ink, pen and pigment on sheets of off-white A4 paper. Each sheet has four holes punched down one side, and a number of the sheets have drawings on both sides. The images consist of simple line drawings, overlaid with passages of dense pigment. Each depicts the artist’s body in whole or in part. Many detail her hands, often in the act of drawing. Other images show the artist’s legs, arms or torso, or show her performing an action: dragging an unidentifiable mass that is attached to her ankle by a rope, or pushing her prone body up from the floor.
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