30"x30"
gouache on w/c paper
Fragments Geometry & Change
Statement
It is the idea behind the work that dictates the final image the viewer sees. When I create a piece of
work, I am not trying to tell the viewer what to think or what he is seeing, rather, I am creating a
place for the viewer to have his own experience, to see and to think his own thoughts. Perhaps, he
thinks of an experience that happened long ago in another time and another place, until now
forgotten. But in viewing my painting the memory springs to life in this unexpected moment.
Through the use of geometry I break the picture plane into many small pieces, which is a metaphor
for my life experience, thought or memory. For me, nothing is ever experienced or remembered as a
whole, but instead in fragments. My work relates to Cubists and Futurists paintings – in which the
natural world is translated into a stark pictorial language of shapes, lines and angles. My intention is
the same as Malevich, who said that his was to use geometry to convey “the primacy of pure feeling
in creative art,” rather than the depiction of visual objects.
From the beginning of the invention of abstraction, Geometric Abstraction has acted as a visual and
theoretical counterpoint to the gestural paintings of Abstract Expressionism. To see a variety of
approaches to Geometric Abstraction, visit the website Geoform, www.geoform.com.
The process is a problem unsolved, that turns into another problem unsolved. I am responsible to the process. Annell Livingston