Songlines: Glacier (Norway) 2018

Howardena Pindell made this delicate artwork, 'Songlines: Glacier (Norway)' with paint and added textural materials. It looks like layers of icy white paint were built up, scraped back, and reapplied, creating a terrain as complex as the surface of a glacier. I imagine Pindell in her studio, patiently dotting the surface, each touch a decision, a tiny act of mark-making. The tiny embedded discs could be meltwater pools or maybe these little gestures are about capturing the feeling of being in a vast landscape that is both beautiful and under threat. Pindell’s work often engages with themes of social justice and identity, so maybe this serene surface has more to say. Painters do this all the time – we make something that looks simple, but it's also a way to talk about bigger stuff, about the world we live in. We are inspired by each other and try to push the boundaries of what painting can communicate.