Art For Other People #12 1984

Richard Deacon, in his *Art For Other People #12*, carved marble and stitched leather. Doesn’t it look like a flower emerging? I’m thinking about his hands working on the hard, cool surface of the marble, cutting away and revealing these two eye-like forms. The inside is ridged, like teeth. And then there’s the soft, pale leather sewn together into petals. Deacon’s playing with contrasting materials, hard versus soft, and the tension between the crafted and the found. The title suggests a gift. Something made not for oneself, but for someone else. I imagine Deacon thinking about how art touches people, how it can be a form of communication or connection. I think of other artists like Louise Bourgeois, who explored similar ideas of form and feeling in their work. These artists are in conversation across time, each piece adding to the ongoing dialogue of art and expression.