Painting by eye: an investigation into the representation and understanding of dimensions and space through objects, images and time

Abstract

Finding equilibrium in forms, colour-form combinations and images has long been a concern of mine. I recognise a persistent manner of working within my art practice that utilises geometry, mathematics and colour to arrive at compositions that have a sense of beauty and equilibrium.

Abstraction has been of significant interest to me and the three collections of work that I developed during my Master of Fine Arts studies - 'Colour:Form:Ratio', 'Photography-Free Zone' and 'Construction-Abstraction' - illustrate the different ways I have applied my interests in abstraction.

Until the completion of the 'Colour:Form:Ratio' painting series my approach to abstraction was cerebral and self-reliant. While I was satisfied with results of my initial investigations and experimentation with abstract forms in painting I felt that the work lacked a social connection. I thus became interested in addressing what I perceived as this shortfall in my abstract painting.

A new body of photographic work that had been evolving in parallel to my painting practice seemed to offer a solution. I realised that the photographs could be used to construct a new version of abstract composition. The images shared a similar colour and geometrical configuration to that illustrated in the 'Colour:Form:Ratio' Series. With this breakthrough, I began 'painting by eye', replacing my brush and palette with the camera and using it to capture and frame colours and geometric forms from my surrounding environment. In order to test my new methodology of arriving at abstract compositions extracted from the world around me, I selected two communally shared spaces - the gallery/museum and the construction site - as the sourcing ground for my photographs.

The result of my experimentation has been two collections of work: 'Photography-Free Zone' and 'Construction-Abstraction'. Both series reflect my experience of the gallery/museum space and the construction site while illustrating the transferral of my painting process to the photographic medium. The most favourable realisation I made in the process of making these works was that the subject matter I captured with the camera possessed aesthetic and theoretical qualities in keeping with my former painted artistic vocabulary, despite being removed from the physical act of painting.