Richard Deacon Alphabet M, 2013

Alphabet M (2013) is composed of four polygonal fields that fit together like honeycombs or segments of a spider’s web. Somewhere between mural, relief and freestanding sculpture, it leans against the wall and rests on the floor. The focus is on the interplay of positive and negative forms, and on the understanding that a sculpture is not defined by its surface alone, but through its intervening spaces. Richard Deacon (b. 1949, Bangor, Wales) relates the underlying concept behind his Alphabet series to the Maison de Verre, the celebrated Paris house designed by Pierre Chareau at the end of the 1920s, whose outer encasement is an expansion of panels made up of glass blocks. Like Alphabet M’s interlocking openings, these function as an interface between internal and external spaces, acting as a projection screen for the imagination