Painted wood

241.3 x 157.5 x 86.40 cm

Louise Nevelson’s works are an embodiment of her spirit - indomitable, larger than life, and deeply nuanced with subtlety. Despite a career path full of hardships and strife, she continued to relentlessly create art throughout her lifetime. Moon garden shadow was completed when she was 78 years old.

In her work, Nevelson brings form to chaos, using discarded pieces of wood to create collages and large-scale assemblages. The choice of medium was both practical and artistic: not only was wood easy to source, it was also a material able to manipulate and form into the vision she desired. Though she had also experimented with using various colours in her works earlier in her practice, she eventually settled on black because it was “aristocratic” and “an acceptance” of all colours.

The darkness of Moon garden shadow belies its depth and layers of details, demanding the same level of attention that Nevelson herself gave to the creation of her sculptures.