Martin Boyce (b. 1967) has reworked and reformulated iconic design objects, developing his own pictorial language based on a reading of the formal and conceptual histories of design, architecture and urban planning.

The work brings together Boyce’s signature motif, drawing on Jan and Joel Martel’s concrete trees constructed for the Robert Mallet-Stevens’ Pavilion of Transport at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925, with Jesmonite, one of the key materials that recur in the artist’s work.

Several frames of different sizes, some partially filled with glass, lattice metal material, or painted wood, appear nestled together in a constellation that recalls the shapes of the concrete trees but also suggests movement as if the white frames were creating a vortex leading into the center of the panel’s opening.