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While I was painting the screens for 'Unfolded
Privacies’ I noticed that the gap between the panels, which I referred
to at the time as the neutral space, could be used to imply spatial values.
In the same manner that
we make assumptions about time and narrative in the vertical spaces separating
cells in a cartoon strip, I could imply spatial values in the space separating
floating panels and leave the viewer to unconsciously make their own assumptions.
I painted the first of these floating panel assemblages, ‘SQ
298’, while work on the screens was still in progress.
This vertical space, I was subsequently informed, is referred to in the printing
trade as the ‘gutter’. Hence the title for the exhibition.
Consequently the images on the panels appear to float and a visual ambiguity
is created with the shadow-play on the wall beyond.
As our eyes are binocular and set on a horizontal plane we tend to scan
across these floating panels and read a horizontal element as a continuous
image. Not so with a vertical element. For example, in order to make the vertical
element of the waterfall in ‘Falls’ read as a continuous element
it was necessary to camouflage the horizontal breaks (drains?) with the horizontal
elements of tree branches.
It should be noted that the three dimensional illusion of these panels is
to some extent lost in translation to a two dimensional photo on a computer
screen.
Note: A full coverage of the current exhibition "Lies in the Gutter..." will be available by October 6, 2005.
Click on a thumbnail (left)for a larger view