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Martin Puryear is internationally known for his sculptures, which resist easy identification. 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. He utilizes various techniques that demonstrate his carefulness and attention to detail. The sculptures often involve woodworking and depict shapes inspired by nature. As a young man, Puryear volunteered with the Peace Corps in West Africa, where he learned about the region’s indigenous crafts. This knowledge, in addition to modernist abstraction, clearly influence his sculptural work.

Puryear has been making prints throughout his career. This exhibition features a small group of etchings and woodcuts recently added to our collection. Like his sculptures, his prints combine forms, processes and a meditative approach. Puryear explores a wide range of techniques in these prints, creating work that is organic, reductive, referential, and often geometric.