Spinner 1985

Nancy Graves’ ‘Spinner’ sculpture is a playful composition of painted bronze, a vertical stack with radiating horizontal elements. I imagine Nancy in her studio, pieces of painted bronze scattered around, each holding a universe of its own. I am drawn to the fluidity of her forms. There’s this yellow zigzag reaching out, almost like a road map to somewhere, and a kind of pink tendril rising upwards like something from a Dr. Seuss book. It has a real sense of movement, a dance in space that’s both grounded and reaching. There is something really powerful about the physicality of paint, the way it can transform an object, and the way the light hits the surface. It's like she's not just making a sculpture, she's making a world, a place where things can be themselves in unexpected ways. It reminds me of what Elizabeth Murray was doing, taking the everyday and making it sing. Artists like Graves keep the conversation going across time, inspiring new ways of seeing and making.