The Crowd — a drypoint
September 23, 2010
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Veils Suite: The Crowd (1990)
drypoint
59 x 90.5 cm (23″ x 36″)
Marja-Leena Rathje (website) is a Finnish-Canadian artist specializing in printmaking and photography. She is crazy about weathered rocks, prehistoric art and the archaeology of past, present and future. She lives and works near the sea and the mountains of Vancouver and has exhibited widely, both internationally and in her local region.
Categories: The Crowd
Marja-Leena Rathje
qarrtsiluni 
The mystery and loneliness of crowds.
The monochrome swirling lines and shading capture perfectly a sense of menace and sinister collusion.
Wonderful – are they hiding, or hidden, behind those veils and shadows?
Thanks Joe, Dick and Rachel,
This piece was part of a series called Veils Suite in which I explored wrapped figures, questioning the idea of hiding or being hidden, as you say Rachel. Any clothing can be a form of hiding even without the veil, a covering of something beyond just the physical body. Somehow in a crowd, the dynamics of veiled figures seem to change – is it because of the viewers’ distrust that there is a sense of menace?
The eyes. Aha.
I can imagine the intensity that must permeate the space those eyes scan, for what, no one knows, and therein lies the mystery.
Very evocative.
You have captured the moment itself, caught in the act of hiding. The mystery and beauty of the unspoken. It has both silence and momentum. I admire the work and its quiet power.