“Darling, the legs aren’t so beautiful, I just know what to do with them.” Marlene Dietrich
“Legs are bicycles in the ride of life.” Nadia (Russian Doll: 2022)
Iron sculptures based on the female figure. Designed in Nova Scotia. Made in New York.
‘The legs are the wheels of creativity.’ Albert Einstein
“You're not allowed to have legs and not use them. Dance.” Dianna Hardy (Heart Of The Wolf)
‘Even the most beautiful legs end somewhere.’ Julian Tuwim
“To hear them talk one would have thought they had no legs, natural functions or knowledge of the wicked world.” Margaret Mitchell (Gone With The Wind: 1939)
installation view, St. Mary’s University Art Gallery (Halifax N.S. Canada: 1997), review: Alyssa Bernard, “Great Pairs of Legs” (Chronicle Herald: 1997)
People are attracted to Lucy Pullen’s Legs. There are 50 airs of tiny cast iron women’s legs on the carpet at Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery. The legs join delicate, frescoed, plaster arms posed in gestures from American sign language, a self-portrait out of rock candy and more conceptual works in Pullen’s shared exhibit with young painter Mitchell Wiebe.
Reproduced from the original pattern in 2022, as a signed numbered edition of 50, the cast iron Legs are available through SA Art Partners in New York City.
Review, Alyssa Bernard, “Great Pairs of Legs” (Chronicle Herald, Halifax: 1997)
“Pullen studied painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, graduating in 1994. Then she turned to sculpture. Her work has a playfulness and directness that opens it up to any viewer. It can be critically linked to conceptualism, and to a NSCAD trend to use unsusal materials to make metaphysical points, but it is not necessary to know a secret art language to understand or enjoy it. She seems to be free from some of the conformist pressures at art school.”
Review, Alyssa Bernard, “Great Pairs of Legs” (Chronicle Herald, Halifax: 1997)
“Most of Pullen’s art is rooted in being human and has a simplicity that resonates. She is true to conceptual art’s process, recording her materials and the numbers of them. One of her works is a spill of 1,000 tiny bright blue buttons, missing any kind of slogan, on the top of the gallery’s baby grand piano. Another is a Vertical Splatter, a delightful tumble down the gallery window, on to the window sill and the carpet of cut-outs of clear plastic, that are from interiors of cubes in her work, The Perfect Solids. “
Review, Alyssa Bernard, “Great Pairs of Legs” (Chronicle Herald, Halifax: 1997)
“Pullen contrasts historical monuments to men and women in a work that features a bronze bust of her grandfather created by a women artist, and a rock candy head of a young woman lying on its side, looking vaguely classical and also asleep or dead. The neck has a raw drippy rock candy look like blood. This is Pullen’s cast of her own head, and it’s called Sucker. …Pullen’s investigations of the universe are playful and full of scientific, philosophic and material curiosity about life…“
studio view, Sackville & Granville Streets. Halifax Canada, 1997
studio view, 1997, Halifax N.S. Canada (photo: L. Pullen)
This view no longer exists. The building from which it was taken, and the parkade opposite, no longer exsit.
One of the the last iron pours at The Lunenburg Foundry in Nova Scotia Canada (photo: Ted McInnes)