Edition of 50, AP 8.
One of the most distinguished artists working today, American sculptor Martin Puryear is celebrated for the elegance and refinement of his abstract, handmade constructions, primarily in wood. Drawing and printmaking have also been essential to his practice. Whether in two or three dimensions, Puryear explores similar forms and motifs, derived from the natural world and from his interest in handcrafted utilitarian objects.
Puryear studied printmaking at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm in the late 1960s, creating etchings inspired by his experience in West Africa. Around 1999, after a hiatus of thirty years, he went back to printmaking and, in 2001, began working with Paulson Bott Press. There he created his most important prints, applying to the process the attention to craft and technical precision that characterize his sculptures. Drawn to the most tactile of the print processes, he explored a range of techniques combining etching and aquatint. A sculptor at heart, he enjoys the malleability of copper and the way it yields beneath a steel needle. His love of experimentation led him to try out ideas to create different textures, for instance sprinkling sand or salt onto the copper plate to produce various atmospheric effects. He frequently relied on the chine collé technique, whereby a thin silky sheet of paper (chine) is laid down to a primary support sheet during printing. As the chine picks up minute particles of ink, it gives extraordinary depth to the etched black area. In several cases Puryear created variants of the same print, exploring the properties of different materials and tools to make subtle adjustments and achieve heightened effects.
The motifs of the Paulson Bott prints recall themes Puryear developed in his sculptures, such as the human head, vessels, baskets, arches, and, in more recent works, the Phrygian cap. All of these objects take on symbolic resonance, inviting meditations on concepts such as freedom and shelter, even as they are distilled to their essential forms.