Barkcloth panel c. 1930

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drawing, fibre-art, panel, pigment, textile, paper, ink

african-art

drawing

fibre-art

organic

panel

pigment

textile

paper

ink

organic texture

Dimensions 29 × 11 7/16 in. (73.66 × 29.05 cm)

This barkcloth panel was made by the Mbuti people, and you can see it at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It's like a map of lines drawn on a piece of reddish-brown fabric. It's so direct and clear. I like to imagine someone sitting down with this piece of barkcloth, feeling the texture, and then starting to draw. Were they thinking about the forest, the path, the world around them? What were they feeling? I wonder, were they trying to capture something specific, or were they just letting the lines take them where they wanted to go? I think of artists like Agnes Martin and her quiet grid paintings, where every line feels so intentional. It reminds me that painting is an ongoing conversation. We're all borrowing from each other, trying new things, and seeing what happens. It’s the same thing, again and again, for centuries: feeling, thinking, making.

Comments

minneapolisinstituteofart over 1 year ago

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Mbuti men collect pieces of the inner layer of tree bark, soak them in water, and pound them until they are thin and pliable. Mbuti women then use twigs or their fingers to decorate these canvases with intricate designs that show repetitions of a single element or various groups of motifs. The Mbuti people live in the Ituri rainforest in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the abstract imagery in their art expresses the shapes and motions of their natural environment. The barkcloth paintings can be seen as maps of the forest, invoking trails and webs, insects and animals, leaves and shelters. Yet these visual compositions also refer to the language of Mbuti music, characterized by syncope, free improvisation, and polyrhythm. As such, the painted barkcloths become graphic soundscapes, rendering a multitude of sonic events in conjunction with silence, captured by the paintings’ negative space.