Anthony Pearson - Blurring the Line Between Sculpture and Painting

Anthony Pearson (b. 1969), a Los Angeles-based artist, is renowned for his meticulous and sensitive application of processes and materials. He initially began his practice with photography, where he explored the formal boundaries of the medium, leading him to cultivate a visual language grounded in abstraction that investigates the conflicts between positive and negative, lightness and darkness. He continues to examine these dichotomies through various materials such as plaster, bronze, and clay, which he then elevates to evoke subtle, yet powerful, poetic moments.

From 2006 onwards, Pearson has consistently explored and experimented with sculpture, turning his first use of gypsum cement into bronze castings. He himself says that he was dissatisfied with his photographic work because the “intensity of the real world could never be accurately rendered in photographs.”