In configuration 9 the rule I used was that instead of using colour as the positive element dictate the fill, I’d let the traditionally negative elements i.e. white and the background prime colour dictate how the fill is carried out. This comes from how I have begun to read into John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg and their ideas of ‘Silence’ and ‘White’ respectively, how it is not an absence of something but a plane on which to notice everything (Cage’s 4’33 has the orchestra in effect playing the latent ambient noise of the environment, Rauschenberg’s ‘White Paintings’ show the dust and shadows that are missed on a painting).
As such, no two white or background tiles are adjacent, instead it is left for the colour to fill in the remainder, dictated by number of sides for the tile.
The piece was very successful and I have had a warm reception from it. To me, it puts in mind the works of Gustav Klimpt and the way in which his clothing is rendered as there seems to be some form to it. The shape was created by using 2 of the photos from Victoria station and noting where the heads were then joining dots. I really enjoyed Nicolas Bourriaud’s ‘Relational Aesthetics’ and the way he defines art as the creation of relationships, something that is appealing to these works as I look at them as connecting meaningless data; with the Victoria Station people, the only connection they shared was being in the station at the time of the photograph, in making these pieces, I create a relationship between them, one that will never play out in the ‘real world’ but occurs here on the surface of a painting.
Up to this point I have not really explained the process behind my paintings and so I am going to elaborate further from now on.
Categories: Art
Robin Leverton 