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I find the expressive power of basic geometric shapes a subject of great
fascination. Across time and place, humans have used these simple forms
to express their most profound beliefs and sensibilities—about beauty,
belonging, identity, and mortality.
My personal attraction to geometric form and structure is longstanding.
I was drawn to the geometric markings that our early ancestors made on
rocks, cave walls, and their bodies, and to the geometric patterns found
from microcosm to macrocosm in the natural world, long before I came to
admire the use of geometric form and structure in modern art.
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In 2000, I began a series of paintings in which I limit myself to rectilinear
forms—primarily squares and rectangles. The square is reiterated and
reinforced by the square shape of the canvas. And, because I want to
focus attention on the relations among forms and colors, each shape is
painted in a single hue in a hard-edged, uninflected manner. With each
painting, I rediscover the great freedom and directness of expression that
are possible through apparently restricted formal means
Each shape in these paintings arises from an underlying grid of same-sized
squares that span the picture plane. These small squares are my smallest
compositional unit and, since all shapes and intervals arise from this regular
grid of squares, all forms are proportionally related to one another. Though
this underlying gridded matrix disappears in the finished painting, from
behind the scene, it governs spatial relations to bring a certain harmony and
coherence to each composition.
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I deliberately begin with a geometric shape and structure—the square
and the grid—whose hallmarks are symmetry, balance, and stability.
Next, working intuitively with contrasts of color and shape, I develop
compositions that are highly asymmetrical and dynamically balanced.
Variations and contrasts in color and shape all but obliterate eivdence
of the grid. Order and stability are challenged as networks of
color and form relations appear and subside in the visual field.
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Composition 62
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My work is not intended to depict or recall particular objects or places, systems or events. Rather,
as I try to animate each painting with complex tensions and rhythms, my work brings to mind
fundamentally familiar forces, states and relations that we regularly encounter from birth onward
as we learn to negotiate both our physical and social worlds. Thus, the viewer may sense familiar binary oppositions such as: open/closed, light/heavy, expanding/contracting, near/far, joined/separate, rising/falling,
fixed/moving. These felt oppositions are rich in associative power and give the work a certain
resonance.
Paintings in this series begin with rapid, uncensored paper and pencil
sketches or increasingly, with computer drawing. At this most intuitive stage, I want to be surprised, and seek ways of composing and dividing
space that seem fresh and dynamic. Sketches are developed and
refined on the computer and may undergo hundreds of changes, large
and small. |
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Composition 65
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The computer provides a highly efficient means to explore
very complex relations of color and form. It accelerates growth and
supports risk-taking as I struggle to move beyond habitual and familiar
choices. Thus, rather than its driving the creative process, I feel I use
technology as a tool to facilitate experimentation and support both
intuitive and analytic modes of inquiry.
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Julie Karabenick 2007
© Julie Karabenick. All rights reserved. |
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