waves within at Haw Contemporary thru May 17, 2025

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As Sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—

Emily Dickinson
The Brain is Deeper than the Sea #632

Laced with concepts reflected in Emily Dickinson’s poem The Brain is Deeper than the Sea #632, Anne Lindberg’s new body of work for waves within is made with fine threads pulled taut through space, graphite and colored pencils drawn across pliant mat board and chips of indigo-dyed paper assembled in wobbly grids. Dickinson posits that the mind's ability to imagine and observe is as limitless as the vast sky and sea, and indeed the heavens themselves. Using reference to the weather, clouds and waves, Lindberg learns from Dickinson as she underscores the intertwined state of mind and body in context with the wonder of landscape.

Regardless of media and scale, in each of Lindberg’s new works, there is a strong sense of the handmade. Materiality and process are offered openly; the work asks you to come closer. The indexical mark, the gesture made, the material itself all become psychological and emotional spaces in the process of making. Large and small drawings render what seem to be the wanderings of the mind, vistas on the verge of disappearing, or forms emerging from the unknown. Every line, every slight wiggle, every thread, every staple feels deeply human, yet there is a quiet precision in the overriding poetry of the work. Each work probes a full range of psychological landscapes, from awe to control, elation to retreat, necessity to abandon.

All of Lindberg’s work, whether works on paper or sculpture, is an investigation of the power of color to carry meaning. Colors, and adjacencies of color, simultaneously hold emotional undercurrents, and suggest light and landscape conditions. Slight changes in value and chroma occur because of color choices and combinations, but also from shifts in pressure as the hand and arm glide pencils across creamy white mat board. In a room-scaled immersive installation, thousands of taut threads form a luminous indigo blue gradient that lifts upward to allow viewers to be fully under and within the work. Lindberg wants you to be “absorbed as sponges,” to take Dickinson’s cue.

waves within places color and the handmade at the forefront of meaning where it has the power to summon forth visceral responses to the profound and disquieting present in which we all live.