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How do we define our reality? How do the collected memories of our past unfold to define our perceptions of the present? Through consciousness we connect with imagery in an attempt to define our experience. When confronted with an abstract picture, our minds search our memories to find a relatable image, an event or an emotion to describe what it is we are looking at. It is in this moment that the body of my work lies. I find it an inherently human quality to scan the surface of an abstract painting to find something to attach and identify with, in order to digest exactly what is being seen. Looking at the abstract, our memory creates function and within the chaos one finds form. Through the use of poured fluid enamels, urethanes and acrylics; a reflective characteristic emerges from the picture plane in conjunction with structured borders and finished backgrounds a type of cyclical viewing takes place. The viewer merges with personal reflection in an attempt to understand what is being experienced, searching their own memory in order to define what is in front of them …thus decoding the abstract into reality. It is from this motivation that I venture to understand what the nature of our consciousness is and how it connects to the interpretation of our lives. We live now in an age of information and connectivity, an age of bold scientific and spiritual ideas that present 21st century challenges for a 21st century painter. Over the course of my exploration as an abstract artist, I sought to remove my subject from the process in order to keep the action of painting at its purest (Pollock), to rely on colour fields to create a sense of emotion (Rothko) and to use the structure and interaction of the elements involved to make the composition work as a whole (Hoffman). As we continue further into this new century, however, the concepts of our world and our universe begin to shift into a new paradigm. Through diving inwards, we find that we make the truest of discoveries (quantum physics) and as we continue to question the very nature of reality …then so too must we question the nature of art. |
