Untitled #21

Howardena Pindell is known for employing unconventional materials in her work, such as glitter, talcum powder, and even perfume. Perhaps most important to the trajectory of her practice, however, is the hole punch, which she started using around 1970, elevating the prosaic office tool from its customary function. By punching rows of holes into manila folders, lightweight metal sheets, and the like to make perforated templates, then spraying paint through them onto canvas in overlapping layers, she created abstract paintings whose dotted surfaces are reminiscent of nineteenth-century Pointillism. The hole punch, the artist explained in an interview, enabled her to pursue an interest in “very small points of color and light.”