patternsthatconnect

The ‘rules’ are to allow each colour simply to form into a shape in its own way, all on its own. (Linguistically this is a selectional restriction violation, practically it is a matter of acting “as if”.) Paying little attention to what the shape will be, set the intention to make each one differently. A shape formed from the outside in looks different from one formed from the inside out. The fairly complex spatial relationships that ensue are provided by the viewer.

Untitled, 2012, acrylic on paper, 21cm x 28cm

Just getting the colours down and allowing the forms to happen all on their own

Untitled, 2012, acrylic on paper, 17.5cm x 20.5cm

Is it difficult not to see it as a group of shapes floating over water?

Sketch 2012

Figures on a Ground, Jan 2012, Acrylic and oil pastel on paper, 20cm x 23 cm

Emergent Square 2 (preliminary drawing)

Reconfigured Square 2, a sketch of a sketch, beginning the preparation for a new painting.

Any four quadrant combination can be reconfigured in 256 ways if you keep the quadrants in the same place and use only rotation as a means of determining new positions. Depending on the image, the various configurations may (or may not) look different from each other. However as soon as you allow the quadrants to swap places as well, I lose count of how many configurations there could be. Repositioning the quadrants at random and taking a snapshot becomes a method for sketching potential future paintings.

One of the things that interests me in this reconfigured square is that my eye keeps trying to find different patterns, keeps attempting to make sense of the information in different ways, almost like a question has been posed that has multiple correct answers.

I have Dawn and Abbie to thank for chasing round the house trying to swat a fly and accidentally knocking over a four quadrant square I had propped against a wall. They had deconstructed it, the quadrants getting mixed up, and once reconstructed it looked something like this.

…the one colour staying constant being the pale green (the basic structure is, of course, constant too)

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The map is not the territory. The sketch is not the painting.

The photograph is not the painting.

From my sketchbook: something I am working on