Artists' Hands Grid Continuum: Ed Ruscha

Edition 5/10

In these images, the hands of the artists Ed Ruscha and LouAnne Greenwald are approached as if they are subjects for conventional portraits. Although these portraits contain no facial features or even bodies, they convey a wholeness through partiality: a kind of visual synecdoche. The sculptural balance of Ruscha’s fingers on his palm and Greenwald’s symmetrical posturing lend these images a studied tenderness. (The inclusion of text at the bottom of Ruscha’s portrait might also be seen as a coy nod to his text-heavy work.) The artists’ hands seem to emerge from nowhere, giving a mystical edge to what most people might consider a practical, mundane part of the body. To the artist, of course, hands are more than that – they are the physical centering of creative energy, the road to the mystical and to livelihood. Looking at these pictures, one is reminded of a stage magician, or perhaps the hands of an artist at work rather than rest. What else might come from that darkness and appear like a sudden miracle?