The way patterns surface in nature is a phenomena an artist can parallel, developing personal visual vocabularies. ‘Veil’ presents recent work, culminating from more than ten years of print making and drawing, extensive and responsive experimentation, overcoming a demanding myriad of difficult technical challenges, and fine tuning processes to broaden the aesthetic limits of various mediums.
Art Statement ‘Veil’ David Nixon
‘The word ‘reveal’… means at the same time to remove and to veil… it designates a double, and contrary, movement.’ (Shirazeh Houshiary) 1
Inhabiting our world is perpetually enigmatic. My understanding is that a membrane connects the material and immaterial: a work on paper can symbolically connect the latent and manifest. Speculatively, an immanence realises itself through projection and reflection. Progenitive activity of an artist can be understood as a microcosm of this. In this process geometry may serve as an invisible armature. Robert Lawlor states:
The architecture of bodily existence is determined by an invisible, immaterial world of pure form and geometry … Within the human consciousness is the unique ability to perceive the transparency between absolute, permanent relationships, contained in the insubstantial forms of a geometric order, and the transitory, changing forms of our actual world. 2
It is the privilege of an artist to explore the expressive process of life forces. Creativity invites us to qualitatively participate in this. Inspiration is a summons to act. An artist can invigorate an intrinsic enchantment. Communication facilitates this shared experience. The vital utility of the creative arts is to engage emotionally, albeit through a meditative lens.
The way patterns surface in nature is a phenomena an artist can parallel, developing personal visual vocabularies. Robert Smithson asks: “What are the lattices and grids of pure abstraction, if not renderings and representations of a reduced order of nature?” I value presence in art, often resolved as a diaphanous murmur. 3
I approach the print studio as a creative laboratory, testing the extreme limits of materials. ‘Veil’ presents recent work, culminating from more than ten years of print making and drawing, extensive and responsive experimentation, overcoming a demanding myriad of difficult technical challenges, and fine tuning processes to broaden the possible aesthetic limits of various mediums.
1 Houshiary, Shirazeh, Jeremy Lewison and Stella Santacatterina. Isthmus. London: British Council, 1995, p.109
2 Lawlor, Robert. Sacred Geometry. London: Thames and Hudson, 1982, p.4-5 3 Morley, Simon. The Sublime. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010, p.115-116
Image: David Nixon, Untitled 2016, Linocut print, 81 x 52.5 cm
