Drypoint on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Tate American Fund
Collection
Shadows
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/carroll-dunham-2279" aria-label="More by Carroll Dunham" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Carroll Dunham</a>
1
Presented by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of a private collector 2000
abstraction
body
cartoon / comic strip
emotions, concepts and ideas
figure
formal qualities
from recognisable sources
hair
irregular forms
non-representational
organic
orifice
people
sexual organs
<p>This is one in a portfolio of ten images entitled <i>Shadows</i>. The prints are numbered sequentially in the order of creation; each print is dated, some more than once, indicating that the artist worked on them over a number of days, between 9 March and 26 April 1989. The dates appear in reverse on each print as a result of the printing process: Dunham scratched them onto the pewter plates from which each image was printed. He numbered them sequentially after printing. The printing was executed by Keith Brintzenhofe and Craig Zammiello on Richard de Bas handmade paper in the studio of the publisher, Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, New York State. The portfolio was printed in an edition of fourteen plus five artists’ proofs, two printers’ proofs and two cancellation proofs. Tate’s copy is the eleventh in the edition.</p>
paper print drypoint
#1
image: 392 × 579 mm
Presented by the <a href="/search?gid=999999976" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">American Fund for the Tate Gallery</a>, courtesy of a private collector 2000
<p>This is one in a portfolio of ten images entitled <i>Shadows</i>. The prints are numbered sequentially in the order of creation; each print is dated, some more than once, indicating that the artist worked on them over a number of days, between 9 March and 26 April 1989. The dates appear in reverse on each print as a result of the printing process: Dunham scratched them onto the pewter plates from which each image was printed. He numbered them sequentially after printing. The printing was executed by Keith Brintzenhofe and Craig Zammiello on Richard de Bas handmade paper in the studio of the publisher, Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, New York State. The portfolio was printed in an edition of fourteen plus five artists’ proofs, two printers’ proofs and two cancellation proofs. Tate’s copy is the eleventh in the edition. 
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<br/>The subject of <i>Shadows </i>is a biomorphic form repeated through the series. Each version of the form has a range of structural characteristics in common and variations on patterning, background and other extrusions or growths which suggest development, movement or alternative view points. The form is common in Dunham’s imagery of the time. Such works as <i>Floating Shape with Backdrop</i>, 1989-90 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dunham-floating-shape-with-backdrop-p11892" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P11892</span></a>), <i>Touching Two Sides</i>, 1989-90 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dunham-touching-two-sides-p11893" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P11893</span></a>) and <i>Pumping Shape</i>, 1990 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dunham-pumping-shape-p11894" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P11894</span></a>) all depict variations on the same form. The creation date is similarly a common feature in Dunham’s drawings of the late 1980s operating as a graphic element, as a diaristic means of ordering chronology for the artist and to include the element of time with the depiction of the body in space. He made several groups of sequential drawings between 1988 and 1990, all featuring a form repeated with changes in detail recalling a series of portraits registering changes of mood in a single person. A later series, his print portfolio <i>Female Portraits</i>,<i> </i>2000 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dunham-one-p11954" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P11954</span></a>-<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dunham-thirteen-p11966" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P11966</span></a>), comprises thirteen versions of a blonde-haired female figure.
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<br/>In <i>Shadows </i>the shape fills each page. It has a long, pointed cone-like extrusion on one side, from which small knobbles, suckers, bristles, fine hairs or rectangles protrude. All versions of the form have either a vagina-like orifice or one or more penis and testicular extensions; some have both male and female genitalia. Sperm-like tadpoles appear to move in or out of openings in the bodies and globs of matter spurt out of penises and other tubular extrusions. Dunham’s drawings blend straight lines delineating squares and rectangles on a two-dimensional plane with the voluptuous curves of the forms’ outlines and the bulges emerging from them, rendering body boundaries ambiguous. On some pages, the body and the background appear almost to merge, in others they are more clearly distinct. Dunham used a wide range of line to create the suite of images; they combine chaotic scribbles with dense rubbing, fine scratching, delicate hairy lines, energetic spirals and heavy dark shadows with the powdery density of charcoal or graphite. 
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<br/>Dunham’s drawings evoke biological diagrams of cellular structures or primitive life forms at the same time as playing with the act of drawing and instinctual expression. His combination of empty geometric linear patterns with more solid curved structures recalls the paintings of Joan Miró (1893-1983). He has claimed that his obsession with the shapes ‘is part of a desire to create beings or creatures’ (quoted in <i>Drawings</i>,<i> </i>p.6). He has also commented that, ‘it’s like having a séance with yourself – that’s exactly how I think about drawing and painting. As though I’m in contact with some part of myself that I can reach only via this behaviour. Things that are just drifting through your mental space become incarnate as drawings.’ (Quoted in <i>Drawings</i>, p.9.) Dunham’s paintings of this period, such as <i>Shape with Entrance</i>, 1990 (Tate L02310), combine his drawing style with areas of strong colour outlined in black, in the manner of cartoons. His processes may be understood as combining the unconscious intuition of Abstract Expressionism and its precursor Surrealism with the colour and cartoon aesthetic of Pop Art and the formal linear virtuosity of high Modernism.
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<br/><b>Further reading:</b>
<br/>Dan Cameron, <i>Carroll Dunham: Paintings and Drawings</i>, exhibition catalogue, Jablonka Gallery, Cologne and Sonnabend Gallery, New York 1990.
<br/><i>Carroll Dunham: Drawings 1988-1991</i>, exhibition catalogue, David Nolan Gallery, New York 1992.
<br/><i>Carroll Dunham</i>, exhibition catalogue, Jablonka Gallery, Cologne 1992.
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<br/>Elizabeth Manchester
<br/>June 2006
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Summary
2007-01-23T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
abstraction body cartoon / comic strip emotions, concepts and ideas figure formal qualities from recognisable sources hair irregular forms non-representational organic orifice people sexual organs