Blue Caribbean Vibration, oil on canvas ©
Pip Dickens
Formal aspects of Op Art - colour and movement
- are given an uncomfortable
'nudge' in order
to produce paintings that are
not quite the
perfect geometrical constructs
demanded of
the genre.
These constructs are in the process
of shifting,
or re-arranging themselves. They
teeter on
the verge of a satisfactory final
visual
'conclusion' or appear interrupted
- frozen
in motion - not quite at their
optimum position.
Elements are discordant which,
in turn, suggests
motion. I want the viewer to
be compelled
to have 'closure', to want, or
try to, 'rectify'
the image themselves.
The paintings (oil) are made
up of layers
of individual colour stripes.
One layer is
placed over the other. As a result,
each
layer negates, or enhances, the
colour or
shapes that precede them. Even
though there
is the possibility to predict
what will happen
between each layer during the
painting's
facture, in reality the slightest
differentiation
of a line's articulation, or
hue resulted
in a quite marked shift.
In short, this is an exercise
in negotiation:
individual layers reacting harmoniously
or
discordantly with historical
layers.
The notion of prescribed, predetermined
outcomes
is negated in favor of exploiting
a process
that would reveal its own surprises
dependent
on what lay beneath it.
The series of paintings is a
comment about
how contemporary perceptions
can never quite
divorce, or override, themselves
from history.
Elements of history may be overwritten
but
shifts in perception often bring
them back
to the surface at different times
and in
different ways.
to see paintings from this series
click here
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