Richard Tuttle/Abstraction

 

Look across the entire spectrum of Tuttle's work and you see a lexicon of singular invented forms that stand only for themselves, without explicit reference to a recognizable image or universal.  With every work he makes, he strives to create forms that exist on par with other unique things in the world--as definitive and self-evident as a leaf or a shadow yet not of nature.  These objects vaunt an inherent force and reason whose "content" derives from their own compelling features--line, shape, volume, color, and texture--and they enter the world as fully formed entities in tune with the real physical parameters of the space in which they are located.  They are characters, in every sense of the word: works of uncanny individuality, with eccentric, self-congruent traits, specific features, personhoods even, showing qualities of fortitude and sincerity that pertain not just to them as individuals but to Tuttle's work as a whole and to his artistic practice.    -Madeleine Grynsztejn