Linda Roche and Carolyn Williams: Code and Reverie

I finally made it to Linda and Carolyn's Exhibition in Black Asterick on Ponsonby road. I have been looking at Linda's work recently and have been interested in the ideology surrounding her practice.  In the first couple of images, Linda has used four bottles of paint/ dye to produce four canvases that show the multiple tonal values that can arise. I'm not sure how linda manages to apply her paint so pristine on the canvas. You can see quite clearly that she has marked her grid with using a pencil, I wonder if she intended to leave the pencil marks on.

Looking at her work has given me the idea of working with colour by stretching its potential colour variations by only using 3 to 4 colours that are slightly similar to each other.


Below is Carolyn's work.

Linda's  small canvases on the right and Carolyn's work on the left.

In the image above, paint was not applied on with a brush. Instead, it was poured onto the canvas. I love the texture that comes as the paint moves and dries on the surface.

The Organic

LED Lights Illuminate Layers of Organic Forms on Glass

In these Illuminated Paintings by New York-based artist Peter Bynum, the traditional expectations of a standard painting are questioned and then broken. Bynum creates each work by splattering, dribbling, and dropping acrylic paint onto glass and allowing it to take on its own natural structure. He then mounts the panes of glass together to form layers of shapes that create a certain depth to the otherwise flat organic forms. The glass can be placed at various distances, some so close that they almost touch, while others separated by up to one inch.

The most original aspect of this work is that each painting is lit from behind by flat LED panels. The consistent, bright light shines through the colors and gives new life to the static objects. The lights can be adjusted by viewers with a remote control dimmer, which provides not only a visually captivating experience, but also an interactive one as well. Through his work, Bynum connects his viewers to the wonders of nature. Up close, the colorful blobs appear to be something you might see under a microscope. From a distance, the pieces are gorgeous landscapes, abstract representations of our natural environment.

After a short discussion with Simon about my work, he mentioned that there was a very ' organic' look to my pieces, which I immediately agreed with. Transparency in my work is also very important because it demonstrates the materiality of the paint in it's clearest form. If I were to apply my paint on a canvas or paper, the material will absorb the paint to some degree and add a slight luminosity.

I am interested in the way Peter Bynum constructs his layers. I have applied paint between two sheets and have peeled them apart to dry which have created the same organic affect that is on his splots of paint. I am not sure of how I can apply paint differently on a transparent surface and let it take its natural form... I must set up some sort of a system first so that I have a framework  to work with to generate my ideas...

Colour, System, Experimentation.

Colour is something that I believe will always play a significant part in my work. This set of works have been heavily inspired by Klari Reis's colourful petri dishes and Linda Roche's thoughts about she is interested in exploring the responses that the fluidity of paint has to offer towards a system or way of working that she has set up.

I am still at an experimental stage as I feel that my work is not yet polished and finalized. I have made these squares with the intent on being experimental that is, having an element of not knowing how things are going to turn out and setting a kind of transitional space where anything could happen. In this case, I allow the pigments of the paint to dissolve, mix or blend into one other , sometimes creating fractals and bubbles of air.

What next? Still on the line of thought towards playing with colour but maybe within a different system. I have thought about how gravity affects the way paint moves but I want to try to avoid relying on gravity and force because I would feel that my works will end up becoming fluid paintings and that is a territory that I do not want to stuck in. I am thinking about mixing paints with turps to observe a chemical reaction that may or may not take place.

Linda Roche

Controlled fluidity; the material aspects
Without systems the idea of allowing paint to compose itself on a surface is difficult to explore. Paint in a tube is inert, silent, under control. To find its voice it needs to be activated. To do this, independent of the artist, it needs to be fluid. Fluid dynamics being what they are this can be problematic. One of the operating criteria within the project has been that the paint must remain on the surface, contained within the ‘vir- tual’ world of the image, where it can be considered and reflected upon. Paint, when fluid, has a tendency to want to escape, to overflow this field into the real world. The enquiry, as such, has the potential to dissolve into chaos, to become incoherent2. Just as language needs structure to be understood, systems tease a sense of fluency and coherency out of paint. They corral the paint on a surface but at the same time enable it to operate freely in between predetermined structures. Systems control fluidity. 

Reference: Roche, Linda ' Theatre of Painting: a structural exploration of the forming of an image through paint: an exegesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Arts (Art and Design), 2008, Page 17

Paint has a life on its own when it is fluid. Like, Linda, I am interested in investigating the way paint interacts with each other. There are all sorts of pigmentation and chemicals within paint and so I feel that there's a whole world of possibilities for me to explore colour and analyse the way they react with one another.
Linda is having an exhibition along with Carolyn Williams opening till the 17th of April. Will definitely check it out! 

 CODE AND REVERIE
“It’s not how I respond to materials but rather how materials respond to my system. I establish a set of systems up front, proceed according to these pre-established parameters and then step back to allow paint and process to determine what happens in between”. - Linda Roche

I am very interested in the idea that Linda has put forth- allowing the material to respond to a system created by the artist rather than having to manipulate the materials myself to create something that has been planned or perceived beforehand. I find that in my practice, I allow space for the material to react and I'm more driven in my work when I do not know how the paint will mix or turn out.

Studio

(Untitled); March, 2013;

National Geographic magazine, cartridge paper, acrylic; glue;

594 x 464mm

I started working with the more figurative figures that I found intriguing and assembled them to propose the question between the ideal and reality. The magazine pages have a gloss to its image, and I think it compliments the plastic sheet with splotches of acrylic. Though I am interested in extracting images and putting them together to create an almost abstract composition, I find that creating 'magical worlds' or 'fantasies' is not what I want the basis of my work to be about. 

Diamonds and Butterflies; March, 2013;
National Geographic magazine, cartridge paper, glue; 570x 380 mm

Here I have taken an more abstract approach. The triangles still originate from National Geographic magazines however instead of looking at figures that I find interesting, I am focusing on textures, colour and pattern. I also decided to draw more attention to the plastic sheet that holds the collage. There's an organic, cell-like freedom to the shape in contrast to the sharp geometric shapes.

(Untitled); March, 2013;

National Geographic magazine, cartridge paper, glue;

840 x 595mm

I have discovered that I am not only interested in creating collages but more specifically, the colour produced within the collage as well as the paint that gets mixed into the plastic sheet. I'm thinking about making more experiments with colour to find an art conversation that I can explore in different tangents.

Peter Madden

The Gravy: Peter Madden's sculpture, Necropolis

Peter Madden slices images (at an angle to avoid the white thickness of the paper) from National geographic magazine and reassembles them to create wonderful constructions. Nature, life and death are significant themes in his work. The link above provides more insight to his making processes.

Klari Reis

Klari Reis has produced incredible experiments using colour dyes and a variety of chemicals such as epoxy polymer to create microscopic  and sometimes cell like reactions. All in the space of a petri dish. The result is breath taking. The mixture of dyes comes across galaxy like to very organic. Makes you wonder how the pigments in paint or dye can be so unpredictable and uncontrollable.