Drulptures

A wonderful word from Luanne Martineau to describe her three-dimensional felt assemblages.

"Hanger and Dangler" by Luanne Martineau (courtesy of Vancouver Art Gallery and www.cbc.ca)

"Portrait" 2006, left. "Parasite Buttress" 2005, right by Luanne Martineau (Courtesy Trépanier Baer Gallery and www.canadianart.ca)

From visiting her current show at the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal the other week, this word has stuck with me, re-enforcing that a drawing can take almost any form - not just a 2D pencil on paper. Although not a literal interpretation of the human form, Martineau's drulptures have a bodily shape and fleshy resemblance that's disturbing yet feminine, tactile, and heavily constructed.

Even Martineau's graphite and thread work on Japanese paper takes on a sculptural form. The drawings are unframed and simply tacked to the wall, allowing the paper to curve away from the wall as a draft sweeps by. This also gives you the desire to touch the work, to physically connect with it in that touchy-feely-textile way.

While mulling this over, I was reminded of the work of Annette Messager who shares this very feminine and soft thread to her work, exploring materials in a child-like inquisitive way. In particular, the installation "Inflated-deflated" uses weightless fabric in flesh tones to create these abstract bodily shapes that expand and contract in a mesmerizing and rhythmic breath motion.

Annette Messager with "Inflated-deflated" April 2009, The Hayward, London, UK (Courtesy of www.whitehotmagazine.com)