Study 1965

Mavis Pusey made this lithograph ‘Study’ in 1965, and what strikes me is the way these shapes don’t try to be anything but themselves. There’s a kind of directness, a structural integrity to these forms. I'm drawn to the maroon shape, it's like a leaning number seven, a kind of foundation for the whole composition. It shares the same sharp, clean edges as the black shapes, but its colour injects a kind of vulnerability, a softness amidst the strong lines. It makes me think about the architectural drawings of someone like Gordon Matta-Clark, but where he’s thinking about absences, here Pusey is thinking about presences, about how we negotiate space and form through very clear statements. It’s like she’s saying, ‘this is here, this is how it is’. In some ways, I'm reminded of the prints of Robert Motherwell, but where he is all gesture and openness, she is pared back, and decisive. It’s a conversation, this art thing, it keeps going, and changing.