I was chatting with Beth, (one of the year 2 MA students) this afternoon and looking at her work. I really liked the lined patterns and she explained they were based on moire patterns. I went off to find out more as I’m working with pattern and colour at the moment; – specifically in terms of looking at ways of generating a feeling of depth. I’m interested in this in the sense of the nebulous, rather than that of distance. A sense of space but no particular place.
Googling moire patterns brought up images that led me towards dispersion patterns, which then led on to scintillating patterns and images of migraine aura. This image caught my eye:
It demonstrates quite clearly how the difference between sharp and soft focus has such a profound effect on perception of depth; – the sharp image seeming to come forward one moment, almost taking on the role of a figure on the fuzzy ground, the next moment looking like a clear image beyond a hole in a frosty pane. This made me go back to a Roberto Matta painting I really like where he uses this effect to create a dreamlike landscape with only the vaguest sense of foreground and horizon.
www.matta-art.com
I’m going to bring this idea into the two paintings I’m currently working on; one looking just at colour relations, the other investigating light using just black and white. In each case I’m interested in how to create the perception of depth. It will be interesting to see the effect of introducing hard and soft edges, or sharp and fuzzy areas.