Soldered brass, 15 x 8 x 9, 2008.
The title adapts a sentence from Matisse’s “Notes of a Painter” (1908). He wants an art of balance and serenity, free of troubling subject matter, a calming influence on the mind of every mental worker, the businessman and the man of letters alike: “something like a good armchair.”
The sculpture takes the simile at its word. The chair is built around the head. A tall slab back gives it the bearing of a throne, and at head height a dished disc is pierced by a hole you can see the wall through. A short open tube sits at the top edge. That makes two openings, one at the level of the face and one at the crown. The disc reads as an eye, wide open in the back of a chair meant for rest, and it faces the person the chair is made for.
