Artists

Howardena Pindell

Press release

Presenting work that spans her six-decade career, ‘Off the Grid’ affirms Howardena Pindell’s status as one of the leading abstract artists of the last half-century. Scintillating detail, material depth and texture come together in her layered compositions that, while beautiful and joyous, never cede their political subtext rooted in African American experience. Alongside peers such as Jack Whitten, Sam Gilliam, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper and Ana Mendieta – artists who, in distinct ways, challenged the period’s critical orthodoxies and expanded the formal and conceptual capacities of abstraction – Pindell’s work reflects a deeply political undertaking. Ranging from early, geometric works on paper to video and large-scale canvases, ‘Off the Grid’ explores Pindell’s subversion of the grid as a formal device alongside the wider personal and sociopolitical concerns of her practice.