Gary Rattigan

Michael, 2006.

Gary Rattigan’s sculptures in this show titled “The Grey and the Fury” are hulking, brutal forms wrought from distressed timber. At first imposing, violent and even a bit threatening, they give way to a subtle aesthetic of simple materiality. Eventually, recognizable forms emerge: What at first appear to be heavily worked hunks of wood become faces. What makes them work so well is that they oscillate between a crude rendering of a head and the sheer objectness of wood.

The sculptures came about through necessity: Rattigan’s house was being renovated and his painting studio became off-limits, so he began working in the basement, and this breakthrough occurred. Working with construction-grade lumber, Rattigan glues 2 x 4s together but leaves a hollow space in the middle. Sometimes he paints the surfaces before attacking the construction with various drills and saws. As it begins to fall apart, dowels are driven through the holes to fortify the structure, and then nails are introduced to patch things together. The process is one of addition and subtraction; destruction and rebuilding. These works have the look of holy relics, pieces of the True Cross or Noah’s Ark—particularly Anthony, hanging on the wall like an ancient crucifix, decimated by wood-boring insects. The pieces are named for saints. Fitting, since so many met violent ends only to be canonized later.—Erik Wenzel