Euclid’s Rooms

Questioning spatial reality through geometry has had a long history in modern art. In 1913, Guillaume Apollinaire wrote, “Today, scholars no longer limit themselves to the three dimensions of Euclid. The painters have been lead quite naturally, one might say by intuition, to preoccupy themselves with the new possibilities of spatial measurement…” Apollinaire’s words give insight into how Cubism departed from Euclidean three-dimensional space and explored an artistic vision of non-Euclidean geometry. My series, Euclid’s Rooms, fits into a historical conversation of abstraction and an intuitive approach to painting. Initially the series started as realistic interiors and architectural settings, but, as the work evolved, I became interested in fracturing the images with painted interruptions, perspective, and dissolving forms until the original image was displaced and an implied dialogue emerged.

With this work, I am exploring how paint handling and mark making can lead me to an undisclosed location; a place between certain aesthetic parameters and intuition. The lines and geometric forms in my paintings struggle for significance through a painterly process which is as much about removal as defining a clear space. There is a continual layering, destroying, and merging of parts as spatial interruptions are placed over existing colours and shapes. Part of my process involves scraping back into a painting to reveal layers that have been lost, as well as using white to create spatial disturbances.

The idea of utilizing white as a mode of shifting lines as an obstructive layer came to me one day after I was folding and unfolding a piece of paper. It was this rudimentary attempt at origami which allowed me to realize that the paintings, in some way, should become artifacts of line and colour. Applying white as a predominant colour led me to pay closer attention to artists who celebrate white in their work such as Ronald Bloor, Kazimir Malevich, Franz Klin, Robert Ryman, and Giorgio Morandi. The use of white and geometry has a rich history with abstract painting. I am building on these traditions in order to find new ground in my painting practice. This series represents a break from my previous concerns as a narrative painter and my efforts to develop new questions with the painted image.