Confessional

Puryear is known for shape-shifting, hand-hewn forms that evoke ideas of deliverance. Here the title suggests a secret or sacred interior space, like a Catholic confessional, where sins of the mind, body, and soul are laid bare. Does its hollowness seem heavy or uplifting, damning or saving? The artist deliberately seeks this ambiguity: “The most interesting art for me retains a flickering quality, where opposed ideas can be held in a tense coexistence.”