May 17 2005

Maria Teresa Rizzi made this drawing, titled May 17, with ink on paper. Look closely, and you’ll see how the red ink is applied in layers, building up from pale washes to deeper, saturated pools of color. The marks here aren’t about rendering something real, but more about setting up a kind of diagram, or a map of an unknown world. The texture of the paper peeks through in places, giving the image a lightness, an airiness. Notice how the fine black lines create a sense of structure, like the scaffolding for these floating red forms. There’s one particular area, where the red circles seem to be caught in a kind of orbit, surrounded by tiny, precise marks, almost like musical notation. It’s like the artist is tuning into some unseen frequency. I’m reminded of Hilma af Klint, who also used drawing to explore hidden dimensions. But where Klint’s work feels more systematic, Rizzi’s has a playful, improvisational feel. It's a reminder that art is a conversation, a constant exploration of what it means to see and feel.