(Mexico City, Mexico, 1943 - )
1999
Oil pastel with incised and scraped lines on paper
20 1/8 x 19 7/8 in. (51.1 x 50.5 cm)
Collection of the Akron Art Museum
Gift of The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a National Gift program of Contemporary Art, is announced by the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
2009.30.32
Renouf incised lines in the paper’s surface with an etching point before adding layers of oil pastel. The artist believes her process lets loose the material’s abstract energy. She writes: “The drawing will say to me: ‘This is what I want to become,’ and the excitement is then to be very alert at each instant, to listen to the material and sense with my hand and eye when it is that the drawing’s energy and structure are the most intensely revealed.” Renouf sees connections between her drawings and nature—paper comes from the cotton plant and chalk and oil from earthen minerals.