Lee Bontecou (B. 1931)

"The reigning image is the black tunneled hole central to anything Bontecou undertakes...The circularity of Bontecou's central shapes can be seen as an inspired evocation of a deep-seated human hunger of the axis mundi, the central point around which the cosmos circulates..." (D. Ashton, quoted by E.A.T. Smith, "All Freedom in Every Sense," in Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2003, p. 174)