BY Nicole Wermers in Influences | 20 AUG 18
Featured in
Issue 7

Nicole Wermers on Anne Truitt’s Layered Sculptures

‘Truitt’s sculptures add depth and dimension to minimalist shapes and monochrome surfaces’

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BY Nicole Wermers in Influences | 20 AUG 18

Anne Truitt, Hardcastle, 1962, wood and acrylic paint, 138 x 38 x 18 cm. Courtesy: The Estate of Anne Truitt/Bridgeman 
   

I first heard of Anne Truitt when the gallerist Carol Greene mentioned her while looking at my early ashtray sculptures during a studio visit in 2001. Truitt’s sculptures add depth and dimension to minimalist shapes and monochrome surfaces through countless layers of paint that are sanded down in-between coats. Her Hardcastle evokes a strong physical response. Two red wooden bars stretch high while leaning on, supporting or maybe penetrating a large black panel that looks like the rear of something else. It looks far too deliberate not to have a function. I love the title as well; I always thought of it as the opposite of a bouncy castle. Years later, I read that Hardcastle is based on Truitt’s memories of a car accident.

Published in Frieze Masters, issue 7, 2018, with the title ‘Artist's Artists’.

Nicole Wermers lives in London, UK. This year, she had a survey show at Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany, which was accompanied by a major new monograph. In October, her work will be shown at Herald St, London, alongside that of her compatriot Markus Amm. 

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