Making something out of nothing

RICHARD TUTTLE, the veteran American artist, once described simplicity and complexity as "virtually the same thing"

RICHARD TUTTLE, the veteran American artist, once described simplicity and complexity as "virtually the same thing". The infuriating nature of this pronouncement, its conspicuous nonsense and its conceivable veracity is something which the artist's work also exhibits to a high degree.

Tuttle's paintings and 3D collage pieces are made from discarded materials, sawn off chipboards, plywoods, polystyrene, cloth, nails and even, occasionally, paint. The artist does not necessarily attempt to transform these materials into art, but simply brings them together in a series of awkward, impossibly quiet under statements.

For the current works, Tuttle insists that the gallery walls be painted grey. White walls might have given extra status to these crumbling polystyrene edges, and rough, wandering jigsaw lines, but grey tends only to pull them back into the nothing from which they came. Tuttle's works, it seems, are simply points at which matter has been gathered together for a spell before entropy has its way again.