ON
THE EDGE,
ELAINE MARINOFF' S CLIFF DRAWINGS
BY DONALD KUSPIT
In drawing after drawing the cliff seems about to crumble, even
as it remains intact. Perhaps the landslide of figures suggests
that it has crumbled and been reconstructed in imagination, and
certainly we are in the imaginative depths in Marinoff's drawings.
Indeed, they are as physically monumental as they are existentially
intense.
They
are daring explorations of the terrain of her inner life. Thus the
male and female figures are both herself, her anima and animus,
in passionate conflict. But what makes the drawings visually striking,
apart from their emotional power, is the fierce delicacy of Marinoff's
touch. Just as animals symbolize the instincts, so Marinoff's lines
seem instinctive. Their repetitive intensity, building to a subtle
climax suggests as much. Marinoff's drawings are made of innumerable
stria, forming the muscular fiber of her imagery, subtly blurring
the difference between Eros and Thanatos, the life and death instincts,
within the female signifying life and the male death. Even when
the female sits in the shadow of death, as she does in Cliff # 5,
she remains alert with life---certainly compared to the male figures;
suggesting that Marinoff's drawings are the ripe fruit of a long
and finally successful search for a vital female self, able to rise
above adversity.
The
hallucinatory force of Marinoff's figurative imagery is reinforced
by the shroud-like earth which contains them. The fog-like effect
suggests the twilight zone of hades.
There
is indeed a cosmic existential visionary scope to Marinoff's drawings,
perhaps most evident in Cliff # 9. The heaven above the earth is
as luminous as the sky in a Tiepolo. But there is irony to the saving
grace of the glorious whiteness: it is a voluptuous female body,
presented as a numinous space-in-itself.
Donald
Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. |
