Moiré

The Moiré paintings were an extension of my line paintings from 2004. I began making this body of work after noticing a moiré effect when creating an early line painting on canvas. The regularity of the lines reacted to the weave of the canvas to create the interference effect. (The effect is a large-scale interference pattern that emerges when two similar, repetitive patterns are superimposed, creating a new, wavy visual pattern that is not present in either of the original patterns. This imperfect alignment causes areas of light and dark (or color) to form a new repeating pattern that seems to “dance” or “bleed” across the image). I began working with it as an ancillary interest to the work I was pursuing at the time. It was a new way of working with paint and color, slowly applying translucent-like layers of lines one on top of another instead of placing each color adjacent to the next as is typically done. The interactions between layers and colors were both different and unexpected.

I continue this series to this day with these new paintings. The creative process of making the work relies as much on intuition and chance as it does on planning. Paint is applied one layer at a time and the color value, angle, and pitch of each layer completely alter and shift the painting in a new direction and open new possibilities. The required accuracy and potential range of outcomes is infinite, but does provide a set of constraints I enjoy engaging.

The tolerances these paintings require leave little room for error and make the entire endeavor a high wire act. The outcome is never pre-determined and the process has the potential to fail at any time.

I draw inspiration and ideas from many sources including the early works of Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Ellsworth Kelly and Francois Morellet. While the paintings certainly can have an optical effect similar to many of the paintings created during the Op Art movement, they differ in a critical way: While many of those works were paintings OF Moiré patterns, these paintings ARE moiré patterns. The arrays of lines are applied over one another and create the effect through the interaction. It’s a very small, yet critical distinction.