The tradition of organic and biomorphic form sculpture is one of the most singularly important in modern and contemporary art. Stretching all the way back to the undulating serpentine forms of the Läocoon, the tradition really took off in the early 20th century in the work of Brancusi, Arp, Moore, Picasso and others who clearly derived it from the contours of the human body. It became a way to continue the historical sculptural emphasis on figuration while conversely being a means through which artists were finally able to break with the convention of the statue to explore the phenomenon of pure form in sculpture.

Patrick Nickell, “Farmers Pride,” 2022; Courtesy of the artist and Rory Devine Fine Art

In his exhibition Like It Is at Rory Devine Fine Art, Patrick Nickell continues and extends the traditions of organic form sculpture, adding some new juice to a direction that has been sadly neglected by sculptors lately. The show is noteworthy both for its displays of formal invention and consummate craft; in an era when so much sculpture is created using “readymades” or 3D digital modeling and printing, it’s refreshing to see work that is emphatically hand made. The largest work in the exhibition, Hovering Over A Loved One (2019), combines the constructivist penchant for enclosed negative spaces with organic form’s emphasis on a feeling that the work has grown like a living being. The piece also has a quality unique to sculpture in that it looks acutely different from various viewpoints, like David Smith’s iconic Blackburn: Song of an Irish Blacksmith (1950). As in all the works in the show, it compels the viewer to continuously move around it to contemplate its myriad of formal nuances.

Patrick Nickell, “Hovering over a loved one,” 2019; Courtesy of the artist and Rory Devine Fine Art

Winning Battles Losing Wars (2019) – the most obviously figure-sourced work in a show of clearly abstract sculptures – suggests two struggling, wrestler-like figures. The quasi-figures are joined at the top – it’s actually one entity fighting with itself. The matte white plaster surfaces of Nickell’s forms are perfect for an art the expresses the most basic quality of any sculpture: pure form. Essential to the development of modern sculpture, the emphasis on form remains a viable sculptural paradigm, and one that Nickell continues in an art that manages to be non-derivative, formally inventive, and intellectually engaging.

Patrick Nickell, Untitled, 2019; Courtesy of the artist and Rory Devine Fine Art

Like It Is
Rory Devine Fine Art
May 28, 2022 to June 25, 2022
3209 W. Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90018