Dress c. 1938

This drawing of a dress was made by Nancy Crimi, sometime in the 20th century. Look at how she’s built the form with these teeny, tiny strokes. I think it’s amazing, this painstaking process, building up the image dot by dot, which feels so connected to the labour of making the actual garment. There’s something hypnotic about the texture, a kind of shimmering effect created by the tiny marks, as if the dress is somehow alive, and the way the colour shifts slightly across the surface suggests a play of light, shadows, a volume. The muted palette is what’s so arresting, particularly the contrast between the delicate dress and the darker ribbon at the waist, that cinches everything in, so tight! The drawing has a delicacy, a certain fragility, but it also has a strange, underlying strength. It reminds me a little of the obsessive mark-making in the work of Agnes Martin or maybe some of Dorothea Tanning's fabric sculpture. This kind of art welcomes different interpretations and emotional responses. It’s not about providing definitive answers but opening up a space for reflection and dialogue.