Mary Mandala

In the 1970s, when Deanna Petherbridge worked primarily in pen and ink, she explored the threshold between figuration and abstraction and perspective and patterning, taking inspiration from the geometries of Islamic architecture and Asian mandalas (geometric configurations of symbols used in various spiritual traditions). The repetitive pen work produced forms which spin outward from the centre and which could be hung in any orientation. Adopting such imagery allowed her to experiment with an alternative to the narrow formal preoccupations of Pop Art and Minimalism, which dominated British art at the time.
Deanna Petherbridge (CBE) is a South African-born artist, writer and curator based in London, whose drawing practice focuses predominantly on pen and ink, although she has also produced large-scale murals and designs for the theatre (including the Royal Ballet). A fierce defender of the vital importance of drawing in contemporary practice, and drawing as both a practical and theoretical endeavour, Petherbridge is also the author of Primacy of Drawing: Histories and Theories of Practice (2010), an important publication in which she affirms the significance of drawing as visual thinking in western art from the 15th century to the present, and confirming a long historical commitment to the primal importance of sketching in generating ideas.

In this work, one of the earliest of her career, the artist takes inspiration from her travels to Greece, Spain, the Maghreb and the Middle East in the 1970s, which led to a series of drawings - to which this work belongs - based on the geometrical patterns of traditional Islamic architecture and decoration. This work is part of a series titled of the ‘Seven Citadels’. Besides visits to Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey and the Balkans, she also studied Islamic architecture and history at the Architectural Association in London. One of her earlier articles was a review of London’s World of Islam Festival titled ‘Islamic Architecture and Decoration’ (1976) which resulted from her studies and trips abroad. As noted by Gill Perry, “Work from this period reveals an almost obsessive interest in the interweaving of architectural and ornamental structures to evoke strange urban spaces and structures, replete with tubular and mechanical shapes. Yet she continually disrupts any sense of accessible perspectival space – of the inside or the outside.”

About this work, Deanna Petherbridge said: In the 1970s, when I turned to pen and ink as the main medium of my drawing practice, I explored the liminal territory between figuration and abstraction, perspective and patterning in drawings inspired by the geometries of Islamic architecture and Asian mandalas. These challenged the parochial preoccupations of Pop-Art and Minimalism of mainstream British culture where women artists were fighting for recognition. The repetitive pen work served an incantatory practice where the dominant centre controlled the spatial variations of concentric spinning activity in drawings that could be hung in any orientation. Mary Mandala was an ironic title as often happened with these austere works.

Gift of the artist, 2021

From the Baroque to Today: New Acquisitions of Works on Paper, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 23/02/2024-27/05/2024

'Deanna Petherbridge, Drawing and Dialogue,' with a preface by A. Griffiths, Circa Press Ltd., 2016.
pp. 15, 35

Deanna Petherbridge, Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, December 2016 – June 2017

Inscription: recto : artist's monogram, Delta/Pi