Featured: Marcel's avatar, 2007

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New paintings

So much of our experience and knowledge today is realized and shaped through different viewing interfaces: computer monitors, televisions, optical devices, even the windshields of our cars. We have developed many adjustable modes of seeing, depending on the instrument, context or our own expectation. Subconsciously we have become adept at absorbing information on the periphery of conceptual zones using such devices.

Television, instrumentation and computer games are increasingly exploiting this capability. These developments also take advantage of our ability to switch between macro and micro viewing sensibilities. We have no difficulty adjusting to a new point of view or switching referential environments in an instant.

In this context the paintings of the last two years represent visual constructs rather than fragments of a larger picture plane. These portals, if you will, suggest an abstract/symbolic region or contemplative space within the finite confines of the canvas. In some cases an active, foreground/middleground surrounding the perimeter of the work channels the eye back to the centre zone. In others an active binary energy develops between the edges and the middle space.

Upon close inspection the painting is further promoted as a physical entity. The viewer approaches a micro space created by tactile surface treatments such as impasto, collage, glazing and in-painting. Narrative or symbolic elements sometimes float above the surface of the painting subtly shifting as the viewer passes in front of the work.

For the most part the works are non-objective and process driven, with improvisational associations regarding form, texture and colour. Symbolism in landscape, iconography as well as references to science and technology evolve as a natural consequence of the process. Ultimately the goal is to is to explore and exploit the relationship of image and object as well as image space and interface.

- Brian Johnsrude

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