Testing Chair (Remembering Bessie Harvey) 1995

Thornton Dial made this sculpture, 'Testing Chair (Remembering Bessie Harvey)', by welding together found materials. It looks like there’s a chair in there somewhere, enmeshed in a crazy, root-like system, all bound up in white paint. I can imagine Dial working on this, adding and subtracting, the whole thing growing organically, like a tangle of vines. He’s building layer upon layer, trying to get something just right. I'm imagining him wanting to honor the spirit of Bessie Harvey. The chair itself—a metal mesh thing—seems pretty uncomfortable, but maybe the point isn't about comfort. All those roots reaching out, and the way everything’s held together, feels like a testing of strength, like the challenges that life throws at us. Dial is definitely in conversation with other artists who work with found objects, maybe even Rauschenberg. Art’s like that, one big, long, unruly conversation.