Born in Philadelphia in 1943, Howardena Pindell has created a stunning array of artwork over her lifetime—and shows no signs of slowing down. Determined to be an artist from a young age, she began taking art lessons when she was eight years old and continued through college, receiving a BFA from Boston University in 1965 and an MFA from Yale in 1967. She also has two honorary doctorates, one from the Massachusetts College of Art and one from the Parson School of Design in New York, NY.  Her styles and techniques shift widely over the years, ranging from paper works to video art to sculptures. She is well-known for her collages, particularly those that feature hundreds of punched-out paper circles meticulously attached to a two-dimensional background.

These extremely-detailed assemblages stem from Pindell’s fascination with numbers, counting, and precision. Her father would use graph paper to keep scrupulous records of household matters, such as the car’s odometer reading. Drawing upon the memory, Pindell often uses numbered dots in her collages, as well as gridded backgrounds. The tiny circles protruding from a square, flat background make illustrious movements and patterns. When the viewer studies the collages for long enough, the fluidity and color within each collage seems to extend beyond their defined boundaries.

Created in 2003, these pieces are similar to works she made thirty years ago, which helped to define her career. The exactitude and detail she executes in making such pieces can thus be considered a resounding theme in her artwork. However, not all of Pindell’s works are so precise and ornate. In the 1980s, Pindell created her Japan series: collages on irregularly-shaped, unstretched canvases. Like her Untitled assemblages, the Japan series featured cut-out circles in a variety of colors. But unlike the Untitled works, the paper dots were strewn across the canvas, along with areas of glitter and postcard fragments, producing less-defined, more hazy patterns. Whether the pieces of Pindell’s assemblages are meticulously or casually arranged, the end result is the same: abstract works that render continuous movement.

Molly Schoen