Leonora Carrington, Cerebro de Pedro (1967) at Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco
Made for the artist Pedro Friedeberg, this watercolour on paper by the English surrealist painter Leonora Carrington shows Friedeberg's brain as Rorschach inkblots intertwined with mythical creatures, wrapped in an egg-shaped halo emitting soft red and framed by a golden disk.
It is a quieter work by the artist that nonetheless encompasses a range of concerns within her work, replete with symbolism and mythological iconography to explore the depths of the human mind—a realm that can never be fully understood, as emphasised by the indecipherable inscriptions that frame the oval form.
Nearby is Double Portrait (c. 1937–1940), which depicts Carrington herself with artist Max Ernst against a rough, parchment-coloured ground. Carrington looks to viewers as her body dissolves into the surface, while her partner, wrapped in a blue flame-like shroud, looks in her direction. A horse waits behind Carrington, alluding perhaps to a wish for independence and new creative directions.
