“For pure art then, the subject can never be additional value; it is the line, the color and their relations which must bring into play the whole sensual and intelligent register in the inner life….not the subject. Both in abstract art and in naturalistic art, color expresses itself in accordance with the form by which it is determined and in all art, it is the artist’s task to make forms living and capable of arousing emotion”*
In my art, I feel I have created this through compositions of basic geometric forms, organized in free un-constructed space, carrying a dynamic equilibrium through the arrangement of forms and interaction of colors. My new work consists of horizontal and vertical expressions, where color alone becomes form and subject and evokes a determinate sensation.
Drawings are the basis of all my paintings. I develop them by constructing and de-constructing until I achieve what I feel to be a successful composition. Then I transpose this composition onto a canvas which I conceive over again. I feel strongly about leaving some of the graphite lines visible on the painting since the drawing is the vision.
Inspiration comes from a lengthy study of traditional Japanese pottery concentrating specifically on techniques of hand-building. Through this, I have developed a refined sense of simplicity and harmony, borrowing from the Japanese aesthetic of space and relationships of objects within it. Another source that I identify with are concrete architectural structures for their mass, volume and space; and to the “pure” elements and materials that nature offers – form, texture and color in motion.
My collages are all created with original vintage material from a 1950’s French arts and architecture magazine. I use pictures of different kinds, playing off one another, to create a composition, as in a painting, where every line, color and form have a unique expression.
* Piet Mondrian, “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art (“Figurative Art and Nonfigurative Art”): originally published in Martin, Nicholson, and Gabo, Circle (London: Faber & Faber, 1937), pp. 41-56
