Big In Japan

I've been researching the Japanese concept or philosophy called "Ma."  One of my favourite directors is Hayao Miyazaki of "My Neighbour Totoro" and "Spirited Away"  fame and I watched an interview where he talked about Ma, necessary, empty space. He was explaining why in anime there are many scenes in a movie where nothing is happening. Japanese culture values the empty spaces as much as the filled. He went on to describe how a hand clapping needs both the hands meeting and the space in between to be effective.

I thought this was a beautiful, simple concept which I would like to explore further. I made this line drawing using one continuous line and I'll try it out using wire.

Close Encounters

I've been looking at the work of Louise Bourgoise, she is one of the artists that my tutor suggested. She's known mainly for her sculptures but she produced some amazing textile designs too. This is a marble piece, she gets across a great sense of objects bulging out of confined spaces.

Below are images exploring the negative space surrounding a multi-twisted mobius strip.

I made this to represent an idea or shape, bulging shapes that are formed when something is forced into a smaller, restrictive space.

  

   

The Illusionist

I've been exploring the concept of illusion and deception (in the art world.) I tried out different things, some worked, some didn't. 

This turned out well. It's oil pastel scratched with my trusty back-scratcher  and with two solid lines of black added. In the top picture, the square appears to protrude and when I turned it up-side down (bottom picture,) it appears to recede.

Next, I tried out 3D version. The results were not so good.

Jack Reilly

This is a great video, Jack Reilly explains his thought processes that go into his work. I like how  he makes geometric shaped canvases and how his finished pieces are both paintings and sculptures. 

Gross's Point

I came across New York artist Julie Gross on my ramblings through geometric forms of art and I was struck by how her art and Albers art tied in with my negative mobius strip exploration. She creates fluid geometric shapes with a compass and her colours bring them to life.

Two Colours Red

Since exploring the whole idea of colours and how they occupy and influence the space around them, I kept getting hits on the net for the artist Josef Albers. He's famous for his hundreds of paintings and prints of nested squares, Homage to the Square and his focus is on the optical effects created.

I used Adobe Illustrator to play around with this idea and in the first picture below I placed two squares of the same size and exactly the same colour red except one square is within two white lines and two grey lines. I think when you look at it, the red square closer to the centre looks brighter.

  

   

The Colour Purple

When I woke this morning I was thinking about the different shapes and sounds colours have. I've always thought of yellow as spiky and having a high pitched sound. I asked my husband what shape he thought yellow was and he said he didn't think it had a shape but if pushed he'd describe it as a thick liquid, slowly pouring. I said, "Are you thinking of custard?"  and he said, "Yes." 
Later, when I asked my daughter the same question, she replied without hesitation, "It's very pointy and it sounds like a bat screeching." Amazing! 

I had a quick look online about this topic and it seems my daughter and I are not alone. Here are some other colours I sketched and how I think they look. Blue is lovely and has a geometric

squarish shape and a breezy sound. 

Purple, I don't like very much. In fact, the colour purple has always made me feel a bit queasy, it even looks like vomit or an amoeba with it's pseudo pods constantly changing shape.  

Anyway, it's called synesthesia, here's a link.