Original artwork description:

The surface of my geometric abstracts are devoid of perceptible texture and traces of paint-handling, except for the slight ridges caused by the removed tape. I use acrylic gouache (low-binder, non-reflective, absorbent color). Triangles, squares, rectangles, rhomboids, and trapezoids are arranged in autonomous, non-hierarchical patterns that structure the compositional field across the entire surface. My subject is color and line, and the energy that arises through the juxtapositions created by abrupt transitions between pattern areas. Patterns are used repeatedly across separate works, although not bound by color or scale. I think of each pattern as a block reminiscent of a batik tjap, or a syntactical unit; thus the vocabulary of these works is comprised of fundamental, interchangeable, yet variable, units. Where a pattern is placed in relation to others in any given work, as well as variations in color and scale, offers infinite possibilities for structuring the surface. I regard this body of work as an extension of the movement away from gestural, expressionist abstraction, a movement advanced over the second half of the twentieth century by Barnett Newman, Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella, and Ellsworth Kelly, and to a less degree, Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkorn. This tradition, advanced in the 1960s and 70s, is variously known as hard-edge abstraction or colorfield painting (but at times identified as minimal, cool, post-painterly, etc.). Several predecessors are important to me, particularly Victor Vasarely, Piet Modrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Kasimir Malevich, and Islamic art in general. Among contemporary artists, I value the the paintings of Sarah Morris, Dion Johnson, John Matt and Bridget Riley.

Materials used:

acrylic gouache, cradled birch panel

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