MARTIN PURYEAR
2014-12-15Puryear’s abstract organic forms are rich with psychological and intellectual references that explore issues of ethnicity, culture, and history. His new sculptures incorporate a diverse range of materials, from bronze, cast iron, and mirror-polished stainless steel to a variety of woods, including red cedar, tulip poplar, maple, holly, Alaskan yellow cedar, walnut, and ebony. Puryear’s sculptures, typically made by hand with labor-intensive methods, often require months to complete. His techniques, developed over a forty-year career, combine practices adapted from many different traditions, including wood carving, joinery, and boat building, as well as recent digital technology.
Big Phrygian, a large sculpture made of red cedar painted a vivid red, directly evokes the cap from the engraving, recreating its creases and folds with meticulously applied layers of wood veneer. A wall sculpture, Phrygian Plot, derives it shape from the same cap, tracing its profile with a gently curved silhouette composed of alternating bands of black ebony and white holly. The possibilities of this form are further explored in Up and Over, a sculpture cast in ductile iron.
Opposite – Big Phrygian, 2010-2014
Exhibition runs through to January 10th, 2015
Matthew Marks Gallery
522 West 22 Street
10011 New York
USA
