Born in 1920 in Saragosse, Spain, the self-taught wood sculptor Ricardo Santamaria employed waste materials in his work, seeing this as a way to critique runaway overconsumption.
“From pieces of wooden floors, chairs, moldings or really anything,” he said, “I organize systems of force and tension.” This approach is evident in the work shown here, which combines the formal traits of painting, collage, and wood sculpture. The roughly square form is composed of numerous overlapping cutout forms.