Richard Tuttle at Sperone Westwater - New York, New York - Reviews of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Richard Tuttle's first solo exhibit was "constructed" paintings; recently, more than three decades and countles exhibits later, he exhibited surprisingly recent and successful new assembled abstract paintings. Tuttle's suite of low-relief paintings from early 1998 presents variations on a theme. The medium-sized, greatest in quantity often horizontal works are all titled novel Mexico, New York and are numbered from 1 to 25

Each consists of an irregular-shaped piece of quarter-inch plywood onto which a smaller piece of the same thickness is superimposed. The top piece not ever protrudes beyond the margins of the larger individual and one of its sides always partly or completely abuts the top cutting side of the larger element. These modestly three-dimensional pictorial supports are thinly and loosely painted with diluted acrylic that allows the copse grain to show. One dominant tinge is applied, while small reserv areas -- oval, rectangular, arrowlike, meandering, stair-step, etc -- are filled with individual or more contrasting colors. Tuttle uses unexpect combinations similar as yellow and aquamarine, khaki and r gray-blue and ocher, light sky-colored and brown. The painted shapes do not coincide with the shapes of the applied relief.

of recent origin Mexico, New York #14 is individual of the loveliest works. An unusual bend at the top of the plywood gives it a shape that summons a flag flapping in the wind. This impression of lightness is reinforced by dint of a pink ropelike form that come intos the red field from the top left corner, races down the left edge of the applied plywood and extremitys in a horizontal loop near the center of the work. The design is simple and effective, the luminous color combination, happy The way in which the painted configuration flirts with the contours of the relief is strangely enticing.

In these abstractions, traditional figure-ground relationships are playfully questioned, and essentially unmodulated colors are juxtaposed. After years of making increasingly mixed sculptural pieces and three-dimensional paintings of varied materials, wefts forms and colors, Tuttle has turn backed to simplicity and directness.

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