Martin Puryear, Meditation in a Beech Wood, 1996. Photo Robert Damisch.
Martin Puryear
Martin Puryear
(Born 1941, works in New York)
Meditation in a Beech Wood, 1996
Water reed, wood, concrete, steel
Height 500 cm
Martin Puryear began working as an artist in the 1970s, when many of his colleagues were working with the reduced, abstract style of minimalism. Beginning with both this artistic direction and handicraft traditions, he developed his own idiom. In his sculptures, Puryear uses natural materials such as metals, stone, grasses, and wood, which he gives abstract, dreamlike forms. Meditation in a Beech Wood is shaped like a headless, seated Buddha figure. He gained the inspiration for the sculpture from Carl Milles’ gilded wood sculpture from 1925 of a seated Gustav Vasa, greeting visitors in the entrance hall of the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. In connection with his project at Wanås, Puryear became interested in the houses with thatched roofs that can be found in Skåne and Denmark. The reeds for Meditation in a Beech Wood come from the lake Tåkern in Östergötland and the sculpture was realized by the roofing expert Adam Ooms.
