Meditating in the Great Forest

American artist Martin Puryear celebrates the honest work done by one’s hands. The carved wood and the thatcher’s intimate knowledge of his craft. But his sometimes majestic sculptures deal with conflicting stories of power and oppression but also have room of soft swelling and comforting shapes. Puryear has a long history with Sweden having studied in Stockholm in the 1960’s. That’s where a seated sculpture of a king by the Swedish artist Carl Milles caught his attention. The soft triangular shape gave form to his Meditation in a Beach Forest, 1996, for the sculpture park Wanås Konst – but headless, clothed in reed and forever sunk into a different state in the midst of a clearing in the woods.

It’s a tall sculpture measuring almost 5 meters in height. As tall as a building or a light reed roof as the ones seen in Denmark and Scania. Puryear worked with a master thatcher who sourced the reed from Lake Tåkern. Milles’ sculpture depicts the 16th century Swedish king Gustav Vasa, know as the founding father of Sweden, ruthless but also culturally inclined and founder the Royal Court Orchestra that later become the Royal Swedish Opera. He fought the Danes to whom Scania belonged to during this time and made an adventurous trek on skis in Dalecarlia that is the inspiration for the cross-country endurance ski-race Vasaloppet. 

A few years before Puryear made his sculpture for the beech forest, an ancient man was found in a glacier on the border between Italy and Austria. Ötzi, who lived more than 5 000 years ago, was covered in 61 tattoos and wore a cloak made out of reeds.  

But today, Puryear’s sculpture has found stillness and sits in silence, Buddha-like with the gently sloping shoulders clothed in reed. In the long run power slips out of your hands. The sculpture is now part of nature, the thatched roof a ragged fur as worn by the wild boar that snacks on its wide hem, and home to a myriad of insects and small creatures.

In 2019 Martin Puryear represented USA at the Venice Biennale. The outdoor collection in the sculpture park at Wanås is open around the year but the indoor facilities and the art gallery are closed until March 6, 2021. (Image: Martin Puryear, Meditation in a Beech Wood, 1996. Photo: Anders Norrsell) 

The Wanås Foundation - Wanås Konst, Knislinge, Sweden

Martin Puryear is represented by Matthew Marks, New York City