The Harmony Patterns use shapes also found in ancient artefacts, to create contemporary imagery with a distinct identity and a nod to the Op art movement. They are innately graphic with an intentionally limited palette developing as the series evolved in the sketchbooks. Two or three colours, usually black, white and a deep colour. These sketches are then loosely translated onto canvas and refined in the painting process.
Pattern is ubiquitous and subliminal. On a visit to the British Museum in 2022, I was struck by the frequency with which certain pattern motifs recurred across cultures. Patterns that I myself was already using in the sketchbook drawings. I wondered why, I saw the same shapes repeatedly emerging e.g. Zigzags, dots, spirals, hash marks etc., These basic components prevail over history, incorporated into ideas of art that are used, in conjunction with local influences, to shape a cultural style distinct to a region.
How they are combined is what distinguishes Celtic from Roman imagery, or Polynesian from Chinese and so on. No one culture can claim these individual shapes exclusively. Although there are specific combinations which, when put together, will identify a particular style or cultural vision. These universal, primal, motifs create a common language, known to all humans and recognisable in all generations.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.