Richard Purdy

New York

Inspired by Stephen Wolfram’s book ‘A New Kind of Science’, the new Richard Purdy exhibition connects technological means with grounded practice. More than ten years after his last solo show, the American artist is showing his last works at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery.

The corpus of Purdy is evocative of his practice that interrogates established artistic codes. Through his new artworks series, he combines mathematical formula and art in order to create colorful grids. His compositions are therefore guided by a series of logical steps encoded by Stephen Wolfram’s scientific approach. Purdy process was along and complicated one as suggested by the artist,‘Captivated by the graphics but unable to decipher the equations, I spent months studying his cellular automata formations, attempting to understand the mechanics, eventually translating the chain of logical steps into working code.’ The result are wood panels covered by a grid filled with colorful encaustic. The complex pattern though mathematically formulated are artistically interesting and celebrate the interdisciplinary method used by Purdy.

Richard Purdy, 161 R, 2005, Encaustic on wood, 24 1/2 × 24 1/2 in 62.2 × 62.2 cm

Richard Purdy, Trio, 2008, Encaustic on wood panel, 35 1/2 × 24 in 90.2 × 61 cm

Richard Purdy

Nancy Hoffman

December 17 – January 23, 2015

520 West 27th Street
10001 New York
USA

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