Swarm

From the Artist

My sculptures begin very slowly—a word, an image, or shape, a phrase in a book. I have to force myself to be patient and listen so I can begin to know what is going on inside my head. My own memories are always connected in some way, although this is not always apparent for a long time. This intuitive way of working is like a kind of mapmaking— delineating the contours of a landscape imagined but never seen. For me, connecting things together in this way is like creating pools of thought that you can dive into rather than one long river that you can only navigate by following the current.
—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records

Sculptor, photographer, and installation artist Nene Humphrey is well-known for her mixed-media work that explores domestic issues affecting women. Swarm, 1996, an offset lithograph printed in an edition of 70 by Robert Franklin, is related to a spoon sculptural series Humphrey had been working on for several years. She wished to achieve the illusion of three-dimensionality in her prints. The spoons and crown-like shapes in the print, like her sculpture in copper, steel, and wire, suggest depth, weight, and balance, or, the lack thereof. Because these are objects with prominent edges, a mass of tangled lines is suggested, developing a sense of overall volume and space.
Humphrey's work delves into loss, the neurology of emotion, and the beauty that exists within these states. She works with neuroscientists as an artist-in-residence at New York University's LeDoux Neuro-Science Lab to depict the seemingly infinite space of emotion and memory as it is processed in the brain. Humphrey creates cross-sections of the brain's intricate amygdala, an almond-shaped mass with thousands of neurons that serves as the powerhouse of human emotion, using the lab's microscope and camera lucida. The vibratory drawings produce dense, layered, and chaotic lines. These thin black marks, which resemble thread or hair and come together and break apart, mimic the amygdala's energy and communication systems. The scientists' works, her drawings, and recorded sound are all incorporated into performance videos and installations. These are frequently deeply personal, immersing audiences in tangled narratives.
_{—Adapted from http://www.nenehumphrey.com/about, accessed 6-23-2021 and "Fresh, Human and Personal: Signature of Brandywine Workshop," Three Decades of American Printmaking: The Brandywine Workshop Collection (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004)}