The Thought-Provoking Anti-Monuments Created by Torkwase Dyson
### Understanding Torkwase Dyson’s “Of Line and Memory”: A Dialogue Between Abstraction, Black Geographies, and Environmental Consciousness
Torkwase Dyson, a celebrated artist known for her radical and interdisciplinary practice, continues to challenge conventional art forms while opening profound conversations about representation, abstraction, and environmental justice. Her latest solo exhibition, *Torkwase Dyson: Of Line and Memory,* currently on display at Gray Gallery in Chicago, delves into themes of Black geographies, climate degradation, and anteaesthetics.
This article takes a closer look at Dyson’s exhibition, which engages viewers with monumental sculptures, meticulously crafted paintings, and a set of smaller, multidimensional works. Together, these pieces form an existential exploration — one where art becomes both a medium of resistance and a site for critical engagement.
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### **Reframing Black Aesthetics Through Anteaesthetic Thought**
One of the central concepts underpinning Dyson’s work is derived from Rizvana Bradley’s “anteaesthetics,” a term that critiques traditional aesthetics by highlighting racial and gendered violences embedded in these art world systems. Anteaesthetics, in Dyson’s practice, is a framework that moves beyond aesthetic beauty as we know it; instead, it asks viewers to acknowledge the nuances and contradictions of Black existence and the spaces between representation and abstraction. This theory provides an entry point into Dyson’s “Black compositional thought,” her improvisational process of addressing Black psychic and spatial geographies.
In *Of Line and Memory,* Dyson pushes the boundaries of artistic abstraction, carefully layering a “Black-inside-Black” positionality. This approach critiques colonial histories and their implications upon Black bodies, environments, and urban infrastructures. At the heart of her exhibition lies a question: How can environmental degradation and the erasure of marginalized histories coexist in art?
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### **The Monumental and the Intimate: Sculptures That Shift Perceptions**
The journey through *Of Line and Memory* begins with *Aya,* a sculptural masterpiece that sets the tone for the exhibition. Central to many discussions about Dyson’s work is her ability to monumentalize abstract forms without turning them into objects of institutional dominance. While *Aya* is large and imposing in scale—constructed from graphite, steel, and wood—it defies traditional monumentality. Through small rectangular cutouts and translucent textures, Dyson opens up the work to interaction rather than reverence, allowing viewers to engage with its geometry as a series of choice-based “desire lines.”
The choice of materials further enhances its meaning. The graphite-coated wood and steel evoke both industrial settings and ecological systems, drawing attention to Chicago’s economic history and environmental struggles. Importantly, *Aya* invites movement rather than directing it, encouraging visitors to navigate the exhibition space in active dialogue with its form.
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### **Exploring Change and Ephemerality Through Paintings**
Dyson’s abstract paintings in the second gallery space are equally compelling in their narrative depth. These works, such as *Dimensioning,* *Reconfiguration,* and *Tuning 1,* exemplify her signature compositional language, blending aquatic washes, thick impasto textures, and sharp geometric lines. Each painting becomes a spatial map that abstracts real and imagined geographies into a “non-representational” aesthetic.
The layered textures and tonal depths in Dyson’s works reveal her spatial engagement with uncertainty. The use of deep reds, blues, and jet blacks reflects the abyssal and speculative themes in her work—such as histories tied to the ocean, the trauma of racialized violence, and the precarity of climate catastrophe. Her abstract notations, resting alongside these color fields, hint at potential movement, architecture, or the fragment of a life once lived.
Dyson’s paintings invite viewers to confront indeterminacy rather than solutions. This tension between action and stasis, depth and flatness, evokes the complex, multi-dimensionality of Black geographies and ecological precarity.
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### **The Hypershapes: A Study in Duality**
The final room in Dyson’s exhibition shifts the narrative towards minimalistic yet ornate geometries. Dubbed “hypershapes,” these smaller constructions are made of frosted cast glass and graphite-coated wood. Placed atop pedestals, they create an interplay of form and material contradiction: opacity versus translucency, stability versus fragility, and scale versus intimacy.
The hypershapes are compelling as standalone pieces. However, in context, they resonate as models—archetypes for what Dyson refers to as “non-linear ecologies.” These works explore the boundaries between positive and negative space, serving as both architectural visions and existential symbols. By drawing connections between miniature forms and the monumental *Aya,* Dyson helps viewers reflect on the macro and micro levels of systemic inequity.
Dyson has meticulously curated the exhibition’s flow so that visitors must re-encounter previously viewed works on their way out. This arrangement reinforces the cyclical nature of Dyson’s themes