ECHOES
SOLD
ECHOES, 2017
1500 x 1500 mm
OIL PAINT and DIGITAL COLLAGE on museum paper on board
ECHOES is reminiscent of a mythological landscape, conjuring images of mountains, typography, crevices and ancient fossils. The work is in fact not based on any external landscape, but instead on a digital interpretation of an AD-Reflex abstract ‘painterly mark’ on another work, which was photographed, before being transformed through complex 3D modelling, layering, texturing and rendering techniques. Print technology was used to print the digital work on museum/archival paper, which was them mounted onto board, followed by extensive oil painting.
Science and technology provide us with far more accurate answers to our questions than ever before. But we are still dependent on myths to actually comprehend the science. Myths are a lens through which we investigate the mysteries of the world around us. The great paradox in ECHOES stems from using pure abstraction as a point of departure, and working our way back to imagined, representational traces. Usually, the process is the other way around. Furthermore, the circular process starts ‘within’ AD-Reflex, and ends ‘within’ AD-Reflex.
The collaborative due explore 'paint' as a medium (both in its traditional form and through digital painting), together with process-led abstraction as an approach. Through the use of various complex processes, mythological landscapes, drips and digital elements appear, then melt away in abstract compositions, which feels like abstract sculpture on canvas.
The work, ECHOES, moves in the grey area between abstraction and representation and uses the strengths of both - the ability of representational imagery to communicate specific ideas via the object's inherent symbolism and the mood and feeling that abstract imagery creates. The apparent seamless integration of AD-Reflex's digitally engendered worlds and the more expressive, tactile qualities of the oil medium creates a tension that not only celebrates the illusionary achievements of the mimetic tradition of painting, but deliberately complicate the surface with unexpected disruptions / juxtapositions of meticulous composition and sensual recklessness.
