TONY CRAGG

The works on view testify to several of his recent series, including his detailed steel Incidents: svelte works that stand upright to belie the weight and strength of the material they are made from. With curvaceous yet strikingly spare forms jutting upwards to give a stark contrast between positive and negative space, the sculptures hold positions that, as if stopped mid-movement, give an ephemeral suggestion of human gesture, which is compounded by the artist’s use of stainless steel, a material whose reflective quality mirrors back the visitor and surrounding space to give an impression of fleeting movement, glimpsed out of the corner of one’s eye.

The sense of gravity-defying equilibrium of the towering Incidents is balanced by the corpulence of Cragg’s latest Integers. Their soft, organic forms allow each distinctive material to inform the shape the finished sculpture takes. ‘Every change in material form has a precise and immediate consequence for our thoughts, feelings and course of action and, with that, the future,’ states the artist. From striated wood to strikingly coloured marbles, the surfaces of the works enter into conversation with structures that emulate naturally occurring forms, evoking geological patterns of sedimentation and erosion. The artist has stated, ‘although it is the human figure which interests me most deeply, I have always paid great attention to natural forms.’

Some of the works manifest more markedly the inspiration Cragg draws from the human figure. In one of the Integers on view, the fleshy tone of the wood comes together with the sculpture’s undulating form to evoke a torso, calling to mind the visual codes of art-historical figurative sculpture. In a 2023 work from the artist’s Masks series, layered stratum of plywood made from bog oak are pressed into each other through a high-compression process, creating in their collision the subtle suggestion of the titular masks. The outlines of profiles and jawlines emerge and recede, resolving from certain viewpoints, before dissolving back into abstraction.

Highlighting the playful relationship between organic shapes that gesture to the natural world and sturdy, and, in many cases, man-made materials, the nuanced blend of the streamlined and the full-bodied, and of tapered and rounded contours, underline the formal dexterity of the artist. Through meticulous craftsmanship, the works on view highlight the many ways in which Cragg’s practice continues to answer anew the question of what is possible in sculpture.