SHIFTING GEOMETRIES - DIMENSIONAL COLOUR IN ABSTRACT PAINTING

Liz Coats
ISIS - Symmetry: Art and Science Sydney Congress, 2001

Abstract:
For a non-figurative painter, recognising the space around us as deep and seemingly chaotic and engaging with symmetry as a connective bridge within the fluid and volatile colours of a painting, dispersed and divided concepts can be brought into energetic contact wihtout a single viewpoint or defining edge. This is all about thinking and making structurally in order to see into phenomena. Perhaps one might consider painting as a feedback loop in which the time-base is hidden. An image field is contained and assembled through progressive decisions. Evolving patterns within the colour layering process provide a stream of options, rebalancing interpretation and lessening the hold of logical determination. There could be a simple periodic system within each image; additional colours suggest further variations, while anticipation is lessened and the work becomes complete unto itself.

I work with combinations of analytic and intuitive evaluations of paintings in progress, rather than through reconstructions from direct observation or applied theory. My work is exploratory in content within a geometric outline. I have usually worked in series around a single theme, pursuing an interest in visual experience of dimensional space in non-figurative, colour paintings. I am interested in ways that apparently disparate meshes of colour as brushmarks or washes can settle into formations which draw attention to circulation and depth within the two-dimensional painting plane.

What I experience and know in painting practice, I am interested to see described from other positions, including scientifically. I have been looking at sequences of movement in computer-generated fractals and lattices in relation to spatial aspects of layered colour and visual perception in my work. Self-organisation of cellular structures, indicative of underlying similarities between diverse and complex phenomena are of interest to me, for instance, but I am not interested in reproducing theoretical diagrams as art, nor mapping the progress of ready-made theorems.

I understand visual experience to be a participatory event. For me, a painting is constructed in an exploratory, but undisguised and direct manner and a viewer can engage with those rhythms and colour relations if they so desire, in a self-directed manner and without mediation through art theory or the authority of the maker.

Observing ways that connective patterns arise in painting has led me to an interest in cognitive functions. As my experience of interacting with materials in painting as facilitator has increased, structural organisation and colour relations call attention to vibrational and cyclical characteristics in phenomena. While colour provides an immediate visual effect, it is the small shifts in media and colour relations right through the decision-making process that provide expansive and experimental possibilities for an artist to develop resonant images. I am particularly interested in making paintings that support an inwardly dimensional space which might encourage pre-language cognition. I understand this sense of internal space is driven by a desire for connection. Awareness comes through linking or recognising external with internal pattern forms.