A sculpture from noted fiber artist John McQueen's exhibit, "Dead Center," on view at Nina Freundheim Gallery through the end of this month.

John McQueen is a revered American craftsman, most often referred to as a basket maker, whose works have been described as “hovering, with great humor, in the gap between craft, sculpture and Conceptual art.” It is fortuitous that a significant body of his highly acclaimed work should be on view here in Buffalo due in part to the artist’s longtime association with Nina Freudenheim Gallery, where he has shown his work periodically since 1976, just one year after Freudenheim founded the gallery.

His sculptural works, constructed primarily of bent, tied and woven willow branches, harvested from his own property in Saratoga Springs, are extraordinary in many ways. Viewers are initially struck by the sheer technical skill and ability required to construct them—it is highly detailed and laborious work by any standard. McQueen’s manipulation of these humble basketry materials is masterful and, after more than 30 years of working with this media, the technique is doubtless second nature to him. On this level they are expertly crafted and beautiful objects. However, it is McQueen’s clever incorporation of text in the sculptures that engages on a more cerebral level. For example, his large grid of woven stencil-like letters titled SPEKIGNTNGS (vanity license plate-speak for “speaking in tongues”) will surely transfix you until you have deciphered the cryptic lines, each in varying levels of difficulty.

The wall-hung diptych Fishes and Ashes is absent text but its imagery packs a powerful punch. The left side is an outline of a baby, the right a foreshortened prone figure of an elderly male. Careful observation of the densely woven background of each reveals that the baby is surrounded by outlines of various foods, fruits and vegetables, suggesting health and sustenance. Conversely, the figure is surrounded by flies—symbols of death and decay. The overall effect is poignant and sobering.

Another work, Welcome to Paradise, is a very tall, columnar vessel topped by an airy, pineapple-shaped basket form. Here the chief material is tree bark. McQueen has deftly stitched the cylindrical column from irregular pieces of this supposedly unyielding material. The result is a richly textured structure that simultaneously mimics and alters the bark’s natural state in the forest. This work recalls McQueen’s highly prized vessels from the 1980’s represented in such major museum collections as the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC.

McQueen’s desire to engage and visually tempt his viewers continues with Giotto’s Startled Starlings (the title of this work and the angel forms in it likely refer to the Italian painter Giotto’s 14th-century fresco The Lamentation). Close inspection here reveals alliteration-related word play with its imbedded words: astride, arouse, adrift, agape, askew, etc. A narrow horizontal shelf slyly projects a line of text on the wall beneath the piece. Subtle wit and humor is evident in nearly all of his sculptures. How else do you regard a work titled Four Food Groups with its jumble of word-shaped baskets confidently identifying these daily essentials as coffee, bacon, cake and beer? Once again, the viewer is invited to consider, reflect and interpret meaning—and it is an enjoyable exercise.

A large wall piece in the last gallery, cryptically titled Another Wheelbarrow, is a crazy quilt-like sampler of textures and patterns all rendered in meticulously bent and tied sticks. The silhouettes that appear between these shapes are enigmatic—from outlines of a garden hose nozzle and a chainsaw to others that are indecipherable (perhaps other tools and objects used by the artist in his daily routine?).

On another wall, within a seemingly random mesh of sticks tied with plastic bundle ties that is titled Tall Tales Curtailed, you will make out the word “QUASH” extending through the depth of this wall-hung sculpture. The word means “to make void, annul or set aside.” Ironically, here the word is literally made of a void—the empty space between the sticks. Shapes imbedded in this box-shaped thicket are actually bird silhouettes cut from ordinary milk carton plastic—an unexpected material but a perfect foil for the white translucent plastic ties the artist uses for this work. Finally, the word “poppycock” at the bottom of the work will be visible to only the most patient observer.

These fiber-based sculptures are thoroughly engaging artworks and McQueen’s free interpretation of visual and literary puns challenge and entice. It is highly accessible work due in part to its unintimidating natural materials. McQueen also renders the imaginary line between fine art and craft meaningless. His virtuoso craftsmanship and the conceptual underpinnings of his work merge to remind us that skill is subservient to meaning in artwork that nourishes both the eye and the intellect.