Et Sic Infinitum // And so on to Infinity
Conceptually, I am concerned with the ‘Cosmic Void’, the exploration of ‘nothingness’. (See dissertation). My practice delves into these vast empty spaces, exploring the tension of existing within the ‘unfathomable’ universe. I am drawn to the notion of an untouchable environment, the manifestation of an unreachable form, one that accumulates around us but not reveal itself all at once.
The centralisation of the void within my practice was to challenge the relationship of nothingness on paper. Through my use of photography, chalk, and printed inks, I wanted to negotiate the fluctuation between building and erasing, challenging the ‘inbetweenness of nothingness’.
My choice of medium, chalk, took careful consideration. What engaged me with this medium was its ability to portray notions of flux. The erasure, the drawing and redrawing, the ebbing and flowing of the chalk particles, was for me a motion that was analogous to the greater elements of particle physics: the premise that nothing is static. Even when presented with these apparently open empty voids that consume, they are, however, an array of particle activity: one on a microscopic scale, reaching beyond the human potential for vision. Thus, through working with chalk, I am afforded a material that cannot be fixed, a medium under constant flux and motion.
The chalk is also reminiscent of the subject matter is portrays. The process of creating chalk drawings, can be considered very much a physical process, a process very much of negation; through the rubbing, and erasure, we find ourselves approaching the realm of nothingness, a reduction to shards, powder and dust – the glimpse into infinity?
My drawings explore the suggestiveness of these unknown entities appearing and receding within such invisible dimensions – a desire transcending beyond the known world, into the mysterious, a place beyond which the eye cannot go. The density of the black pigmentation is vital to the work. The obliteration of light increases sensations of destabilisation, by conveying impressions of the infinitely deep.
Within my practice, I have been aware of the limits of representation. Through the evolution of my drawings, I wanted to distance myself from anecdotal associations of the representations of space. The use of the black pigmentation, contextually references the artistic practices of the forefathers of Abstraction, in which the black is be considered formless. Not unlike Kazimir Malevich, black should not be considered a portrayal of fullness or emptiness. The use of the colour black negates itself, offering the viewer insight into the boundless abyss through a means of infinity.
What also engaged my interest in the colour black, and my reasoning for working in monochrome, was the indicative notions it held around its colour theory. The colour black is rather ambiguous in that it is designated as a colour yet is does not reflect light, as with other colours. However, does black then therefore designate respected colour through its total absence of light?
From this, I feel my work looks at ambivalence, with opposites, darkness and lightness, the obliteration of form and its materialisation, the known and the unknown. My work calls upon this grey area, the inbetweenness of nothingness, reaching out toward the unfathomable, this never certain space that opens up like a void before us.
Throughout this body of work, I wanted to evoke a sensation of destabilisation for the viewer; allowing them to question how they perceive themselves in relation to their environment, introducing the notion of the sublime. By evoking a physical reaction to the viewer, altering their awareness to their own spatial positioning, they can experience an increased attentiveness to their environment in relation to what is beyond the darkness. Imaginatively entering this space should require the viewer to readjust their balance physically and conceptually, as they become consciously aware of a need to reprocess what they had previously relied upon as secure knowledge.
Through the scale of the works, I intend the viewer to ‘enter’ into the drawing. Entering the space of the work, experiencing a diminishment of their own personal sense of scale: creating a feeling that can be compared to the common experience of gazing into a night sky. An experience that is un-spoilt by artificial light pollution, offering the feeling of complete insignificance. By disrupting the balance of light in the room, Et Sic Infinitum intends to encompass the audience, absorbing them.
By opening a dialogue with the unknown, my work hopes to raise questions around the convention of drawing - to move away from anecdotal references to things, not becoming illustrative. With the work, the drawings, provoking mystery in themselves, a sense of something beyond the surface that is not just a representation of space.
