Nets

Triangular Pentagon, 2014, gouache on paper, 18 x 25 cm

Mutant, 2014, gouache on paper, 25 x 18 cm

Demi-Horizontal, 2014, gouache on paper, 18 x 16 cm

Net I, 2014, gouache on paper, 18 x 25 cm

Net II, 2014, gouache on paper, 18 x 25 cm

Truncated Octahedron, 2014, gouache on paper, 19 x 25 cm

Kite Shape, 2014, gouache on paper, 25 x 19 cm

Entrance, 2014, gouache on paper, 25 x 18 cm

Pentagonal Prism, 2014, gouache on paper, 25 x 18 cm

Wall, 2014, gouache on paper, 25 x 18 cm

I have recently made a new series of small paintings on paper working in gouache. This is the first time I have used the medium and have enjoyed the translucent, free flowing, chalky quality and the jewel-like colours that it is able to achieve. This series of work focuses on nets that when assembled make a three dimensional geometric form. However, my nets, purposely would never fit together, due to the wonky lines creating an anthropomorphic character to the paintings. 

The nets that I have been working from derive from Order in Space by Keith Critchlow. This design source book features patterns, geometric forms and the nets that make up these solids.

In the preface he philosophically states:

“Yet we are taught so soon to project our minds on to the ‘flat’ and even trained to think of geometry at school as starting from the flat and projecting up into the solid. The truth is, we are finite and we exist in a finite universe. We educe the infinite in the same way: we start in the round and can project to the flat-infinite plane, which according to modern theory is also to be conceived as returning on itself, not continuously ‘away’ to infinity.”

The comment is somewhat contradictory in that we are studying these geometric solids in the two-dimension. On a practical level I am trying to achieve a similar outcome when interpreting a three dimensional form on a two dimensional surface which often proposes itself as a challenge.