Untitled VI (State 1), ed. 11/ 40, 2012
MARTIN PURYEAR explored a variety of media—including painting, drawing, and printmaking—before devoting himself to sculpture. As a sculptor, he has maintained an unwavering commitment to traditional building methods, working primarily in wood, but also utilizing an array of other materials, including wire mesh, tar, stone, stainless steel, and bronze. Puryear’s work is further characterized by the artist’s reliance on his hand to create his sculptures, and by his insistence on mastering his materials—often through preparatory drawings and maquettes—and dexterously translating this understanding to individual works. Puryear’s objects and public installations are a marriage of minimalist logic with traditional ways of making. A common form that occurs in Puryear’s work, the thick-looking stone bulge, is surprisingly hollow, coloring the otherwise sturdy shape with qualities of uncertainty, emptiness, and loss.