Refraction 2016
“The purpose of the exhibition is to try and dissimulate the process whereby the idea of refraction can be used to explore the context of our interrelation with light. In Art the relationship between the observed and the observer is in constant flux due to refraction. This exhibition will explore themes around what refraction is and how it inter-plays with all forms of Art, and especially visual art. Refraction plays such a role in our perception that every moment of every day is visually unique”.
A couple of summers ago I took myself and my painting equipment up to terrace of the “Saloon” at Drumcoura Lake Resort and set up my easel with a view across Drumcoura Lake. It was 6am and the sun was just over the ridge of the pub casting my shadow along the slatted boards of the decking. Across the road the deeper greys of the lake were turning to green with the bull rushes vying for intensity with the fields on the other side. As I painted, the vista transformed through ranges of greens, into blues and as cloud obscured and passed streaks of grey ran through the image.
I have always mused over the effect that light has on our perception but more recently I have started to think about what our perception has on light. Whether we are aware of it or not we are constantly surrounded by a cloud of minute particles, essentially dust, which plays a role in how we perceive light.
Some people, like me, suffer from floaters (those random, worm like objects that wander about our vision and which are caused by bit of our cornea coming apart); we effectively stop seeing them by using our brain to blot them out of our field of focus. So too we are programmed to not see a lot of what is surrounding us. The ambient air outside in a typical urban environment contains 35,000,000 particles per cubic meter in the size range 0.5 micrometer and larger in diameter. These are pretty small and beyond the range of our normal vision (a human hair is 40 – 50 micrometers wide) but I perused what effect this dust cloud we live in has on our relationship with light.
Later that year I was walking along the newly opened canal walk which now runs from Ballinamore to Aghoo Bridge, a distance of three kilometres, but which at that time was half completed, and came across a bunch of dock leaves that had decayed into delicate filigree. I took the dock leaf home and pressed it between cartridge paper for two years. When I initially recovered it I thought to use it as a stencil but having seen how it became such a delicate object of beauty in its own right I vowed to have it displayed in some manner.
My walk took me to where a grilled footbridge takes you over the weir and onto the lock, one of fourteen dotted between Ballinamore and Carrick-on-Shannon, in County Leitrim and looking down at the stilled water captured between the sturdy gates I was impressed by how the recent heavy rain had created a lace-work of foam on top of the water. The foam I likened to the perception of dust and other objects that obscure our vision without us being aware. The reflections in the water seem to me to be like that of another world partly obscured by an inverted cloudscape.
Taking these images with me I decided to build on the idea of Refraction and to use the concept as a basis for the exhibition. The commonality between the lace-work of the foam and the filigree of the dock leaf became two threads in my exhibition.
The gold painted dock leaf becomes a symbol for nature as the root of industry in “Minor Industrial Complex” In this piece I have disembowelled a desktop computer and used the motherboard, which, when viewed from above resembles a satellite image of an industrial complex. The motherboard has been inserted with led lights that appear to have no source of power, thereby enhancing the effect that they are somehow powered by the suspended leaf.
The images of the foam as seen in the gallery have been painted on sixty pieces of card, each one carbon copied by hand many times over in a process of dissimulation whereby the images in singular manifestation become intrinsic within their own process. Having taken the original image I have utilised the form and conceptualised the images to create abstract works of art that have a very constrained point of reference but in which a strong sense of purpose is engendered.
There are 40 individual pieces in this corroboration which form a delightful kaleidoscope of colour and style. It is apparent, however, that the main objective of allowing participation by the public far outweighs the end result but it has completely surprised me how well the overall piece works. Again the use of repeated pattern acts as a unifying thread throughout the work.
