Dusti Bongé’s paintings are held in museum collections across the South. I first came across her at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans.

As one of the first Southern artists to work in a thoroughly modern style, she was consistently evolving, pushing herself, breaking new ground, as this artwork testifies to. Analysis comes from Dusti Bongé Art Foundation Executive Director Ligia M. Römer.

Dusti Bongé, Untitled No. 4, 1970. Oil on Masonite, 72” x 48”. Collection of the Morris Museum of Art. Gift of the Dusti Bongé Art Foundation.

This week’s work from a museum collection comes from the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, GA. It is a powerful, large painting – 6 feet tall! – from a slightly later period of Dusti Bongé’s abstract work. Like last week, this painting too must have been a favorite of Dusti’s, as she chose it for the cover of her 1982 book, “Dusti Bongé: Life of an Artist.”

This work shows the subtle change that started occurring as Dusti’s abstract vocabulary evolved. Instead of the fierce, intersecting, overlapping, and ever defiant brush stroke patterns of her exemplary 1950s and 1960s Abstract Expressionist pieces, her later works show a certain restraint.

In this particular painting, one can see that the way the luminous fields of color are laid down is more subtle than before, and the obvious visible brush strokes are more measured. They serve to emphasize the suggested forms of the dominant colors rather than to purposefully disrupt them. They appear as determinate accents rather than aggressive interruptions.

While her earlier vigorous expressionist gestures were often dramatic and aggressive, these are eloquent and rhythmic. In either case the results are equally powerful and compelling.

Indeed, Dusti’s work always kept evolving, even after she had gone completely abstract by the mid-1950s. She repeatedly found new material means and stylistic methods by which to continually push her own boundaries. She did not allow herself to get too comfortable, instead she forever challenge her well-honed skills.