Resolute Geometry

My work is abstract and resolutely geometric. I am interested in relations of form and color and the complex rhythms they can engender across the picture plane. In the paintings from my ongoing Composition series begun in 2000, I limit myself to rectilinear shapes—primarily squares and rectangles. To maximize compositional legibility and focus the attention on color and form relations, each shape is painted a single hue in a hard-edged, uninflected manner.

I begin with a form and format whose hallmarks are symmetry and stability. Rectilinear shapes arise from an underlying grid of small, same-sized squares. These squares are my smallest compositional units and all other shapes are proportionally related to them. The square is reiterated and reinforced by the square shape of the canvas.

As my explorations begin, I look for novel ways to counter and subvert this symmetry and stability. Working intuitively with contrasts of color and form, I create compositions that are highly asymmetrical and dynamically balanced where evidence of the grid typically survives only as isolated clusters of small squares. Order and stability are further subverted as myriad networks of relations appear and subside in the visual field. As the Composition series progresses, I increasingly push the works’ visual complexity while striving to maintain its overall coherence.