Thinking about my next work, I was considering tracing the road route travelled between the two halves featured in my Dwelling Fusion series. In a sense this could be viewed as a negative space as it both joins and separates the two dwellings that constitute the basis of the work.
I remember seeing works from the Air Routes of the World, by Langlands and Bell, exhibited a few years ago at UCS and found it very interesting. The plotted air routes standing alone rendering geographical mapping totally unnecessary so familiar the emergent image of a space so densely plotted with the myriad of commercial air traffic routes.
In keeping with my current minimalist approach to painting I plan to trace the journey of one solitary vehicle on its journey of three hundred miles of ‘A’ roads and motorway; the outcome in stark contrast to that achieved by Langlands and Bell – http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/6634
Continuing on with my current major theme entitled Dwelling Fusion, I was inspired by the prominent appearance of curves in most of the paintings. This became evident to me when I started to explore how to represent images using less detail and experimenting with more abstract imagery. The prominence of the use of curves was accentuated by the fact that I began to work with larger canvases than I had used previously. I have included some examples in the paintings below which illustrate this.
Comparing my early work on the Dwelling Fusion series with my current work, it became evident to me that my work has evolved and almost taken a new direction. Whereas the initial work was figurative, very detailed and literal, my current work is now very much minimalist and abstract. It is almost as if my work has added another dimension.
The emphasis on curves resonates somewhat with the work of Oscar Niemeyer, the Brazilian architect, who saw the curve as an extension of the natural physical world around him. He notes that
“I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein.”
