Woman's Dress 1935 - 1942

Lillian Causey made this drawing of a woman's dress on paper; I am unsure of the date. It's all about the delicate, almost transparent washes of color and the linear precision of the marks. It is a process of watching the image emerge from the ground. Causey's delicate application of pigment and ink gives the work an ephemeral quality, as if the image is about to dissolve back into the paper. The whole piece is a symphony of browns and creams, with subtle variations creating depth and form. You can see each brushstroke, each decision, laid bare, particularly in the vertical strokes used to render the folds of the dress, they remind me of the controlled chaos of Agnes Martin's grids. The way the dress and shawl sit next to each other—it's like a conversation. Like it could be a fashion plate but it's so much more, it's about the exchange of ideas and inspiration. It celebrates uncertainty.