Terra

Terra, created with celebrated artist Matthew Day Jackson, represented by Hauser & Wirth, is inspired by the artist’s ongoing exploration of the metaphysical qualities of lead.

By pouring molten lead into a large, shallow containment vessel, enigmatic forms are revealed when the metal sets from its molten to its solid state. The cooled lead produces an uncanny effect, legible as an aerial view of a landscape or as a corporal surface, disorienting our sense of scale. Both poisonous and alluring, Jackson uses lead in his paintings representing either objects in the foreground or environmental backgrounds – from rivers running through burned cities to malignant growths in a bouquet of flowers, lead is chosen for its physical properties, its composition as a distant alchemical cousin of gold, and because of its toxic nature which our bodies mistake as a nutrient.