Richard Serra's Works on Paper span a significant part of his artistic journey, displaying a fascinating exploration of form, texture, and the interplay between light and shadow, much like his monumental sculptures. While Serra is primarily known for his large-scale steel sculptures, his works on paper, produced since 1972 in collaboration with Gemini G.E.L., are a crucial aspect of his oeuvre. These works include over 250 pieces that embody a visceral sense of gravity, density, and magnitude across media. The "Reversals" series, for instance, features pairs of paper divided by dense black pigment from a mixture of silica and Paintstik—a crayon made of pigment, oil, and wax. This series highlights Serra's signature contrast between heavy black sections and the lighter, seemingly floating unpainted areas (Artsy).
Serra's approach to creating these pieces is innovative and tactile. For example, in the process of making "A Drawing in Five Parts," inspired by the shifting slopes of sand dunes and Zen garden lines, Serra melted paintsticks and spread the fluid medium on a worktable covered with metal mesh. He then pressed sheets of paper facedown onto the mesh, using a stylus to force the medium through and onto the paper. This method underscores the physicality and depth of his drawings, evoking motion and the passage of time, themes recurrent in his sculptural work (The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
The exhibition "Richard Serra: Works on Paper" at Berggruen Gallery showcased a range of drawings and prints from 2001 to 2019, illustrating the evolution of Serra's exploration in drawing and printmaking. His works on paper are described as both a meditation and a direct extension of his sculptural practices, offering a concentrated space where the artist engages in a solitary, immediate dialogue with material and form. These pieces range from gestural sweeps of paintstick and crayon to textural studies employing etching ink and silica, each revealing an instinctive, intimate aspect of Serra's larger body of work. Through a blend of innovative techniques and sophisticated printmaking processes with Gemini G.E.L., Serra has developed prints that articulate a deeper, more articulated relief, demonstrating his enduring experiment with form and medium (Berggruen).