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.