Kathryn Dain

November 03 - November 28

PULSE

opening, Saturday November 07, 2pm-8pm

installation and exibition on

I use a wide range of media and many working methods in my art making. These disparate materials and methods are connected by a consistently reductive approach. I pare down to as little as possible per work - a reduced palette, spare imagery, almost nothing in the way of composition - sometimes as little as just one medium and no tools other than my own two hands. I plan. I think long and hard about formal issues:  the  relative depths of surface textures, the scale of a single repeated unit in relation to the size of the whole, the subtleties of value contrasts and so on. Throughout there is always the mantra, ‘Simplify, simplify.” Then I get going. the mind quiets and the body takes over. I engage in acts of repetition, working and reworking, that can take hours, days, weeks, sometimes even months to complete. The processes are the opposite of the planning - layer, build up, scrape away, repeat, repeat and repeat until there is enough visual activity to balance the initial overt simplicity.

I want to give the viewer two things - first, a quick access to the work, and second, a means whereby he or she can contemplate and receive the work slowly over time. This usually comes about by paring a simple, specific totally known shape with a visually active surface. The shape is grasped quickly, the surface slowly. This is not only the way I see and visually engage with the world, but also the way I find the impetus for all the work I produce. i.e. Something catches my eye usually outside in nature usually because it is quietly and profoundly beautiful. I slow down and look at it. Whatever has caught my eye - a pattern, a rhythm, a colour, a shape, a texture - may become something to explore, a starting point for simplification and abstraction. These heightened moments of seeing tend to be active, moving, fleeting because of shifts caused by wind and changes in natural light. I try to capture and express this activity. I want the viewer to have a good sense of the work from a distance with surprises up close. And always, always there is this need to find a point of balance between opposites within the work - shape and surface, order and chaos, simplicity and complexity, activity and stasis - things must not be too much one way or the other. The goal is a kind of energized stillness achieved by balancing forces which are in opposition to one another. The surfaces hum with a quiet, ceaseless visual energy while the edges are still.

In this new body of work a variety of repeated lines serve as a connecting device from one art work to the next and allow for explorations with media, surfaces and formats. Most of the work is deliberately very large so that it can envelop the viewer. The intent is to give the viewer a contemplative place to go -  an escape from the day-to-day into pulsing fields of light and colour - from which to return calmed and refreshed.