Title of Artwork: “Night Creatures”
Artwork by Lee Krasner
Year Created 1965
Summary of Night Creatures
One of the most intense works of art, Night Creatures is an all-over swirl of paint strokes whose rhythmic patterning covers the entire canvas. Even though this is an abstract painting on paper, the swooping, linear shapes converge to form a network of ambiguously evocative imagery.
All About Night Creatures
The tangle of mostly black and white brushwork reveals menacing (disembodied) eyes and heads. The painting’s rich surface texture, dense interlocking forms, and suggestive and ominous nuances of imagery combine to create a sombre and eerie effect.
Krasner insisted that her life and job were linked, and she was correct. She emphasised the importance of art’s ability to convey deep meaning: “It is my goal to better understand myself so that I can better communicate with others. Life and art are inseparable.
Yes, there is just one.” If somebody takes the time to read my picture, it’s incredibly autobiographical, if anyone cares enough to do so.” In 1945, she married Jackson Pollock, a fellow artist.
Following the artist’s death in 1956, paintings created during this time period are explosive expressions of grief and loss. Night Journeys, a sequence of paintings done at night in the Pollock/Krasner barn studio in The Springs, Long Island, may be related to this piece.
She was suffering from sleeplessness at the moment, so she started painting in the middle of the night. For the most part, she worked in black and white with a few splashes of earth tones.
Colour had to go, she explained, because she couldn’t work with it in the dark. “…I understood,” she said, “that… if I was going to work at night I would have to wipe off colour totally.”
She did, however, concede that a “depressed condition” has emotional underpinnings. Detroit art dealer Franklin Siden, who displayed the work shortly after it was completed, proposed the title Night Creatures.
Information Citations
En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.
