This painting was inspired by the work of Ellsworth Kelly. Kelly
drew most of his subject matter from sights that caught his attention during
his daily visual experience: plants, architecture, reflections, and especially
shadows. For instance, In his 1951 painting Seine, he used a probability
system to recreate the visual
phenomenon of reflections on the river. Kelly also liked
to explore colors. He liked to use colors based off of
objects from life as well as his own intuition. Later in his career, he
became obsessed with making shaped canvases with subtle curves. He also
made paintings like Blue Red, 1966 that projected out into the viewer’s space.
In my painting, 204 Squares on a Paraboloid, I decided to
use a specially formed canvas constructed by Zoe Litaker to react to Kelly’s ideas of curvature and entering the space of the
viewer. Using a graphing calculator, I created a probability system
to imitate dappled light on the bricks in the main quad at UNC-Chapel Hill. In certain areas
where the bricks have been replaced many times, there are several different
shades and hues of bricks. The shadows from the trees create even more
value differences among these bricks. I made a system to randomly
assign colors to the squares on my painting (similar to the bricks) and
then another system to place the shadows (either the lighter or darker
mixture of the color). I used Synchromism color theory to chose hues
with much more variety than the bricks in the quad. I decided to show
the process of the work by including all the tape used to make the
painting. I wanted the organic, chaotic bundle of tape to provide a
visual contrast to the strict geometry of the canvas.
In an method comparable to the work of Payce Madden, I simplified a
visual experience into a system almost completely unrelated to the
actual experience. I am pleased with the results and I enjoyed learning
about Ellsworth Kelly.
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