Untitled 1991

This is a Louise Bourgeois print, made with graphic black lines on a pale ground. Look at how it's been put together, these spiraling forms almost floating on the surface. I think of Bourgeois in her studio, her hand moving back and forth with dark ink. The circles could be whirlpools or flowers, maybe both. They’re tethered together, suspended in this web of connective lines. I wonder, did she see these like a map of her relationships, a constellation of emotions? I'm reminded of other women artists such as Ree Morton, Eva Hesse, and Yayoi Kusama who also had an obsessive approach. Like them, Bourgeois was constantly experimenting, often returning to the same themes and images, letting one work feed into the next. It's like we are invited into her world of associations and personal experiences, and then back into our own.