A Dose of Beauty #2

There is a diverse group of paintings, sculptures and mixed media pieces that evoke in me a strong feeling of love. The response is not the same for each piece, but it is always love in some form, or a mixture of love, awe and desire. I thought I would share some of these with you over the coming weeks and months. Art to soothe the soul. 

Not long ago, there was a study at the University of London, conducted by Semir Zeki, Professor of Neurobiology, who scanned the brains of volunteers while they viewed 28 works of art. He explained, “We wanted to see what happens in the brain when you look at beautiful paintings.” The experiment concluded when you look at art, “whether it is a landscape, a still life, an abstract or a portrait—there is strong activity in that part of the brain related to pleasure.”  When viewing art they considered most profound, the volunteers blood flow increased in a certain part of the brain by as much as 10%, which is the equivalent to gazing at someone you love.

Martin Puryear (b. 1941) was born in Washington, DC. His first one-person exhibition was in 1968, and since then he has exhibited throughout the world, including public commissions in Europe, Asia, and the United States. He is internationally known for his sculptures. Over the last five decades Martin Puryear has created a body of work based on abstract organic forms rich with psychological, cultural, and historical references. His labor-intensive sculptures are made by hand at his studio in upstate New York.

Working in materials including wood, stone, metal, and mesh, he investigates history, identity, and culture. His sculptures appear abstract, but reference recognizable shapes such as the human head, caps, carriages, and architectural structures.

 Untitled (State II), 2014. Color softground etching with drypoint and chine collé, 38.75 x 32.75

Puryear has also made prints throughout his career. He creates stunning simple shapes in his dry point etchings. These are stand-alone pieces but also act as ideas on paper, that can later translate into labor intensive, large scale sculpture. Like his sculptures, his prints contain forms that are organic, reductive, and referential. 

This delicate etching features a woven, basket-like construction. Fine webbed lines create an abstracted form that echo the sculpture below. The neutral palette, finely textured background, and repeated shapes, gives us some visual insight into Puryear's creative thought process. The bent over form, and its smaller companion are examples of a very personal visual language. They give us a clue about how Puryear perceives and arranges forms in space. 

Untitled, 2014. Hardwood saplings, cordage
174½ × 148 × 52 inches

Here is the large scale sculpture whose form and structure is also represented in the etching above. Puryear combines practices adapted from many different traditions, including wood carving, joinery, and boat building. The sculpture is constructed with an open lattice framework, and is bound together with cord. Resting uneasily on the ground, it seems to offer shelter, but also feels like something you could easily slip through. 

Seeing how a singular shape can activate the space around it, and be reimagined and modified, helps us to see in new ways. I'm continually fascinated to learn how artists sift through their ideas using drawings, etchings, loose sketches, any preliminary practice, to develop a personal language of forms that then blossom into finished works. The large scale sculpture somehow retains the same kind of internal space and fine line quality as the etching. The artists' thoughts made visible. 

 To create one’s own world in any of the arts takes courage.
—Georgia O’Keeffe