Decoy takes the form of a flat circular disc with a periscope-like protrusion. This shape recalls a duck decoy, a wooden form used by hunters to draw waterfowl to a specific location. Puryear’s work often plays on the tension between interior and exterior space: the seemingly hovering disc form that serves as the base of this sculpture implies that there is a hidden space beneath for which the sculpture functions as a trap door, the protruding shape perhaps a handle one might use to thrust open this hatch and reveal the mystery below it. While the work at first seems innocuous and modest, further investigation reveals an ominous suggestion of something lurking underneath the security of the horizontal plate, reminding us that a decoy is not what it seems. 

Following his college graduation, Puryear volunteered for the Peace Corps and spent two years teaching in a rural area of Sierra Leone. There, he was exposed to the work of woodcarvers and carpenters from the region. This experience compelled Puryear to continue his study of functional carpentry, including Scandanavian and Native American woodworking techniques. For this piece. the artist created a full-scale model in wood that was then cast in iron. The grain of the original wood form is still evident, adding tactile warmth to the cool, industrial metal. Puryear's sculptures combine the simplicity and gravity of Minimalism's basic geometric shapes presented on a human scale with a biomorphic quality derived from his use of organic materials and unique craftsmanship. “I’m interested in making sculpture that tries to describe itself to the world,” the artist has said, “work that acknowledges its maker and that offers an experience that’s probably more tactile and sensate than strictly cerebral.”(1)

(1) Quoted by R. J. Powell,  “A Conversation with Martin Puryear,” in John Elderfield, ed., Martin Puryear, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2007), 106.