Lee Bontecou

In response to my aesthetic use of spheres and bamboo in my work it was suggested by Jeff Beekman that I take a look at the work of Lee Bontecou; specifically her use of line in space and her love for spherical elements in her sculptures. The works seem to share similar qualities formally, and it has been interesting spending time with what she has to say concerning her work.

One of the few women artists to achieve broad recognition in the 1960’s, Lee Bontecou created a strikingly original body of work in sculpture beginning in the late 1950’s and continuing to the present. Throughout the early 1960’s Bontecou’s work evolved with ever-greater complexity as she continued her formal experimentation. References to airplanes, the wings of birds, and other anthropomorphic and mechanomorphic elements began to reverberate more evidently within her sculpture and in numerous drawings. Her relationship to the art world is unique and it is continually her aesthetic that draws in artists and enspires them to date.

Working quietly and privately for the last twenty-five years a time during which she declined and even ignored invitations to participate in exhibitions or to show her work, Bontecou has remained an enigmatic figure in the art world. A 1994 exhibition of her sculpture and drawings, organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, rekindled interest in her work, introducing it to a younger generation of artists who found it powerful and intensely compelling.

I find my own research into her work to be much the same. Her use of the combination of many elements in space co-existing in some way that is still esthetically appealing is something that I feel I will always continue to explore in my own work. Her work has inspired me to explore options in drawing, something I have not done enough of as of late. It is also very useful to see her reliefs and her ideas that they are neither paintings nor drawings but some sort of quasi existence.

Like many of the artists that inspire me Bontecous has a preoccupation with nature and science, as well as investigations of surface. In a series of drawings made in the 1980’s and 90’s, she experimented with scale, color, and various drawing strategies and surface treatments. I am also drawn to her use of orbs as a linking with cosmic bodies as the sun and stars, and by extension with light and reasoning. Still dealing with a spherical element her most recent works deal with the eye as a primal metaphor for discovering and interpreting life.

In thinking about space, and the use of voids in work an interesting correlation was made between Bontecou and sculptor Anish Kapoor by Donna de Salvo. Kapoor’s Untitled 2001, for example, presents a rectangle of blood-red fiberglass with a massive central void. The void opens up in such a way as to make the surrounding space part of the work. Kapoor’s sculptures are the embodiment of human concerns that readily acknowledge the technological present to which Bontecou once alluded.

Bontecou, Lee, Ann Philbin, and Salvo Donna M. De. Lee Bontecou: a Retrospective. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2003. Print.

Castro, Jan G. "New York." Rev. of Knoedler Gallery. Sculpture Jan.-Feb. 2008: 73-74. Print.

Chattopadhyay, Collette. "The Uncanny Eye." Sculpture Mar. 2004: 29-33. Print.