Pandemonium

I get a real sense of satisfaction from order. I believe it helps us organize our minds properly, focus on things correctly and allow us to understand how to place things. I guess you can apply this to a great many principles but for me the most important sense of order is that of shape.

It’s a cornerstone of my entire catalogue of work and probably always will be. I like the way an individual shape defines its own behaviour, conveys a message to our brain and suggests its own place in existence. Often it is how shapes relate to each other that intensifies the need to add or remove order from a composition. The more random it appears the more order that is required. I could probably plot it on a graph if I could be arsed.

What I’m trying to do is create randomness but under the proviso of a set of rules. What I do is think of a series of random shapes I can apply, then create a set of rules for them to adhere to. I then place them randomly but still according to the rules. So each flick or dab has a specific relationship that directly affects the other shapes in the surrounding area. Each collective of shapes may then yet form another larger mass that should be bound by the same rules again. This is how many of my larger complex paintings evolve.

Easy principle; difficult to execute. So for example I may say that any black and white spiral cannot have a circle next to it or that an orange twist may not be larger than 5cm unless it’s next to a white one and so on and so forth. Sounds a bit crazy but the result is striking.

So for Pandemonium there were around twenty rules in place. From quantity of paint to where it goes, the diagonal loop sequence, what paints were allowed together and the ones that weren’t… it’s a great example of making something look as if it has no structure or order. Well now you know that there’s more to this kind of painting than you may have first thought.

Unless, of course, you just see a giant firecracker exploding – in which case, who cares!