ANNELL LIVINGSTON___________________________________________________________
HC74 Box 21860 annell@taosnet.com www.annelllivingston.com
Fragments, Geometry and Change Statement
It is the idea behind the work that dictates the image and the idea behind Fragments, Geometry and Change, is based on the observable phenomenon in nature of changing light and color. My experience of the world, (memory, or thought) is not as a whole, but instead as bits, or fragments, which are part revealed, part concealed. The final image does not dictate what the viewer should think, but allows a place for the viewer to think and suggests a different way of viewing the world.
In this series Fragments G&C, compositions are based on geometry drawn with a straight edge, breaking the picture plane into many small pieces, and change in color, value, temperature, or intensity. These changes can be seen as the eye moves from top to bottom, bottom to top, or from side to side. It is a mode of perception, a multidimensional language, which because of its simplicity has immediacy, and spontaneity that is distinct. It is a foundation for an art of limitless associative possibilities. Through this process I can explore simultaneously the mysterious spaces between inside and outside, colorfield and image, figuration and abstraction, two and three-dimensional space.
In this body of work I use simultaneous contrast, which is the use of two colors, painted side by side, that interact with one another and change the visual perception accordingly. Simultaneous contrast affects our sense of the color. Though the shapes are not altered, patterns appear, disappear, and change in their appearance.
Color Field painting is a style of abstraction painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940’s and 1950’s. According to Roberta Smith, Color Field was arguably the first major art movement initiated by a woman artist, Helen Frankenthaler. Originally it was characterized primarily by large fields of flat, solid color spread across or stained into the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane, my work is made up of small pieces or shapes which create fields of color spread across the picture plane.
These works could be seen as pages of a diary or personal journal, and like poetry, one idea dissolves into another, and the series of work becomes a sequence of new images. Like each new day, forever changing