Vincent Fecteau is best known for his modestly sized abstract sculptures, which he makes by hand using papier-mâché, plaster, and clay, as well as such commonplace items as rubber bands, seashells, and string. Their incongruous forms, unnerving color schemes, and often unsettling details are the result of numerous formal decisions made during the sculpting process: “I start with a form, I change that form, I change it again, I change it again. It either looks more like something or less like something. If it goes too close to looking like one thing, I move it away to look like something else. The idea being that it never quite settles into any one way of being read. That it can be all those things.”

Collage has also played a central role in Fecteau’s art since the beginning of his career. His collages typically combine images (clippings from architecture magazines, photographs by the artist) with materials such as cardboard and found pieces of wood or rope to create shallow reliefs. The effect is often an ambiguous sense of depth and an oscillation between abstract and domestic space.

Vincent Fecteau (b. 1969) lives and works in San Francisco. His work was featured in the 2002 and 2012 Whitney Biennials and the 2013 Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. His one-person museum exhibitions include the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kunsthalle Basel, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the Vienna Secession, among others. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016. A survey exhibition of his work is on view at the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany, through September 5.