Vessel 1935 - 1942

Mary Berner made this drawing of a vessel sometime in her lifetime with graphite and colored pencil. You can see it's not just about rendering what's there, but also about the process of looking and feeling. I love the way the surface of the vessel is built up with tiny, delicate pencil strokes, like a dance of mark-making. The purplish color inside the pot is really suggestive, giving it a magical depth. It's as if Berner is inviting us to imagine what this vessel might hold, both physically and symbolically. There’s a sort of quiet energy in the way she varies the pressure of the pencil, going from light and airy to dark and dense. I also like the contrast between the vessel and the paper it’s drawn on, like a dream hovering above a fading ground. It reminds me a little of some of Giorgio Morandi's still lifes – that same attention to subtle shifts in tone and texture, turning everyday objects into something deeply poetic. Ultimately, the work has an ambiguity which invites us to create our own meanings.