Tacita Dean: Eclipse Drawings

Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl is pleased to present ‘Tacita Dean: Eclipse Drawings’ on view September 24 through December 19, 2026 featuring twelve new multi-layered screenprints published by the renowned Los Angeles-based artists’ workshop, Gemini G.E.L.

In April 2024, Tacita Dean traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, with a singular intention: to watch a total solar eclipse. Having filmed several total eclipses over the years, she wanted to experience one without being behind the lens. Yet when the eclipse arrived, instinct took over. She reached for her camera—and not looking through the viewfinder, she twisted and turned it toward the sun, spinning and snapping with little aim or calculation. When the negatives were processed, something extraordinary emerged: not photographs in any conventional sense, but drawings made with sunlight itself, loops and arcs of luminous energy seared onto blackness of the sky.

The resulting images are not completely photographic, and Dean considers these images to be drawings, stating “These were just miraculous. I thought, my God, this is drawing with the sun – you can see the bite of the moon.” These gestural ‘drawings’ were then translated into twelve screenprints of exceptional technical prowess by Master Printer Jeff McMane, some using as many as eighteen colors. Dean deliberately selected the screenprinting medium instead of a traditional photo-printing approach in order to convey the depth of the radiant dark sky and eerie colors of the eclipse. Usually, the whites of the imagery are left as bare paper, with the darker tones built up from layered colors. The ‘Eclipse Drawings’ reverse this traditional approach, starting instead with a flat black background and adding layers of whites, browns, and green inks in various degrees of opacity.

When seen as a whole, the series captures the ephemeral nature of the eclipse, matched by the urgency of the spontaneous and quick traces of the artist’s movements. By presenting the elusive passage of the eclipse through these drawings, Dean exposes a natural phenomenon that we can never see or look at directly. Our experience of an eclipse must always be mediated through another device, be it specialized glasses or photography equipment, or in this case, screenprints.

Tacita Dean was born in Canterbury, England in 1965. She studied in painting departments both at Falmouth School of Art in Cornwall and for postgraduate at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Despite being best known for her 16mm films, Dean has always made drawings, which are very central to her practice. She also uses a variety of other mediums, including photography, sound, found objects and printmaking as well as writing often about her own and other artists’ work. Highly regarded, Dean has been the recipient of several prizes including the Hugo Boss Prize (2006) and the Kurt Schwitters Prize (2009). She participated in the Venice Biennale (2003, 2005, and 2013) and dOCUMENTA 13 (2012). Recent solo exhibitions include Fudación Botín, Santander (2013); Instituto Moreira Salles, Rio de Janeiro (2013); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2012); MUMOK, Vienna (2011); and Tate Modern Turbine Hall (2011).

For inquiries or further information, please contact Chris Santa Maria, Director at [email protected], (212) 249-3324 or visit www.joniweyl.com