In addition to being inspired by artists such as Agnes Martin and Sol LeWitt, Kendra Ferguson’s minimalist aesthetic is informed by what she describes as her “spiritual and material lineage of the Pioneer West [from her Montana roots] and Scandinavia [her adopted residence for ten summers].” Composed of hard-edged, repetitive wood elements, Tabula Rasa, is crafted and assembled with meticulous precision and clarity that belies the organic character of its material. She describes the process of her sculpture making as reductive, meditative, restrained, and deliberate. Claiming that all her work is autobiographical, she points out that Tabula Rasa has 128 stacked wood reveals, a number matching her weight at the time it was made. She describes the process of removing the edges from each of these layers of wood, as symbolically shedding all of the projections made by others on her over the years in order to start anew. In size the sculpture measures 4’4” by 4’4”. Thus she says, “I believe this sculpture is about turning 50 when one can bare oneself and stand four square. The sculpture, not born of serenity, attained the serene.”

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In 1997 two sculptures by Maine-based Kendra Ferguson were included in an important Addison-organized exhibition, The Serial Attitude. The exhibition’s title paid homage to Mel Bochner’s 1997 essay of the same name in Artforum in which he discussed work by contemporary artists who applied a systematic, pre-determined ordering in the execution of the work.

Ferguson’s sculptures fit perfectly in this exhibition in the company of minimalist work by such well-known artists as Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, Donald Judd, and Agnes Martin, as well as Bochner. Ferguson’s minimalist aesthetic is informed by what she describes as her “spiritual and material lineage of the Pioneer West [from her Montana roots] and Scandinavia [her adopted residence for ten summers].”

Tabula Rasa, composed of hard-edged, repetitive wood elements, is crafted and assembled with meticulous precision and clarity that belies the organic character of its material. She describes the process of her sculpture making as reductive, meditative, restrained, and deliberate. Claiming that all her work is autobiographical, she points out that Tabula Rasa has 128 stacked wood reveals, a number matching her weight at the time it was made. In size it measures 4’4” x 4’4.” Thus she says, “I believe this sculpture is about turning 50 when one can bare oneself and stand four square. The sculpture, not born of serenity, attained the serene.”

Susan C. Faxon
Associate Director and Curator of Art before 1950