Mel Kendrick: Cutting Corners
Mel Kendrick doesn’t like to waste anything. When he cuts a cylindrical form out of a thick block of wood, what he removes becomes part of the sculpture. When you walk around one of his works, you see traces of decisions he made and those he changed his mind about. These markings are records of the artwork coming into being. While he may have learned from both conceptual and process-oriented artists, his connection to the previous generation of Abstract Expressionists, with no hint of nostalgia, makes him one of the best artists of his generation. We don’t see his work; we experience and viscerally engage with his creative choices. We see evidence of logic and the unexpected; everything feels both necessary and surprising. Kendrick is the kind of magician who shows you how it is done and still leaves you mystified.
— John Yau
