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Artweeks Merch
brochures, fliers, banners etc
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Artweeks Invitation
In 2024 Nadine Summers kindly asked me if I wanted to be part of an Artweeks group show in her newly created studio space, aka venue 132. This was a perfect opportunity to exhibit the Symmetry of Time, a painting about using pi as a ratio by which one could unravel an abstract calendar and meditate on the observations of Kendall Walton's essay the Categories of Art.
The Symmetry of Time was developed from a painting called 365 Detox which changed after reading up on the Vitruvian Man and pi; my plan was to leave out the naked dead dude and use the relation between the square and circle as one of several clues to interpret the painting.
Finishing the painting in time would be an opportunity to exhibit something larger than usual providing it would squeeze between the venue's radiator and shelving units, game on, I accepted Nadine's offer and waited for the paint to dry.
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| 2025, The Symmetry of Time: 116.136 cm in diameter |
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As the deadline approached
(including drying time),
I worked all night trying
to balance tones. Above
my head is the initial design
called 365 Detox from 2019 |
Development
My painting started life four or five years ago as the 365 Detox, see tiny painting above my head in photo. There are a lot of things that go over my head but this one had my name on it. Starting life in 2019
I experimented with various layouts but regardless of shape the same number of divisions where present from the beginning.
The idea behind the painting was to replace the normal cycle of months with an alternative abstract year planner. After all if Henry Beck could simplify the London Underground into a non-geographical map perhaps I could simplify the passing of time into a symmetrical whole that was free from the confines of disjointed historical references.
Kendall Walton: Categories of Art
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365 Detox, 2021
One of many versions
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The second feature in this series grew out of a question raised by Kendall Walton in his essay The Categories of Art which asked, and I paraphrase, how much colour should one add to Picasso's Guernica for it to be accepted as a real work of art in a world where fine art paintings traditionally included colour?
The essay Categories of Art concerned itself with critical interpretations of art from the vantage point of the artworld public so to speak; the artworld's inner clans and tribes. Does the viewer only understand or recognise artworks as art if the artefacts in question comply with their views on art? For example, just as a tribe of Ben Nicholsons wouldn't understand the flat surface of a guernica, a tribe of Post Painterly Abstractionists wouldn't understand its lack of colour.
We often repackage world cultures, and our interpretations of paintings, around a myriad of narratives and shared outlooks. It has been implied that searching for meaning in the artist's branding or higher gossip instead of leaving the artwork to speak for itself is an Intentional Fallacy (Wimsatt & Beardsley), and the Symmetry of Time is no exception as it withholds its secrets until the viewer can find a common language by which meaning is revealed. I’m not sure knowing anything about artists helps this process and yet where would the provenance of art be without it? …anyway back to Artweeks.
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Everything came together on
the day, the wooden frame,
the box and logistics. |
Deadlines & Transportation
As the plan moved ahead we found ourselves negotiating the application process and slowly adding material to the Artweeks website, a very slick operation on their part, we soldiered on.
My own sequential deadlines included finishing an oil painting in time for it to dry, framing everything and getting it on site early on bank holiday Monday, May 5th. It was my personal privilege to reunite a shopping trolley with its owners after finding it dumped in the park. Me and the trolley went on a journey of social responsibility for which I'm thankful, I probably saved it from being dumped in the river 😳
Local Reception
Several locals kindly posed for promotional reasons, other's remained indifferent. I tried to spread advertising further afield, although the Artweeks website, brochure and word of mouth were probably more effective in attracting visitors.
The Florence Collective
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Fellow exhibitors Lucy and Nadine, and star gallery security expert
Wendy who made sure no one threw soup over my oil painting |
As the core team took up positions by midday on the 5th visitors mingled, browsed and left comments in the book, a secondary purpose unraveled in accordance with one of the Symmetry of Time's key design features; its test card format was ideal for testing the white balance capabilities of mobile phones and cameras, and recording visitor's dress sense against the painting's colour and tonal ranges.
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| When Boshra posed with Nadine I found ongoing artistic millage as the art happening unfolded. |
Maths: an abstract year planner
By this point most of the details have been shared apart from the question of the Symmetry of Time's aesthetics and dimensions. Depending on how the conversation developed the artwork could be approached from several vantage points.
If visitors showed an interest I asked them whether they thought the painting was essentially black and white with a bit of added colour, alternatively was it a colour painting that just happened to be primarily black and white?
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Alan and Lizzie displayed both tonal and colour sense, and took part in a
detailed discussion on Kendall Walton and maths, all part of the experiment. |
Visitors were also asked to count the squares and coloured sections, did they remember an approximation for pi from school days? The Symmetry of time can either have an exact diameter of 116.136 centimeters or millimeters for it to work...but considering its circumference was measured out using a piece of cardboard with a drawing pin in one end and a pencil taped to the other the viewer can come to their own conclusions about the precision of its measurements.
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As visitors counted the squares the dress code photo
shoot became an integral part of the exhibition. |
Coming to your own conclusions:
Using the above measurement and the approximation of pi as indicated by the painting you can calculated the circumference. Note wholeness and unity are metaphors amongst many within the Symmetry of Time. The painting has several interlocking layers of meaning, hopefully the parts support the whole culminating in the final step to figure out the value of each square and coloured section.
Using the number of 22 squares and 7 coloured sections find a second way they can relate as a ratio to divide the circumference and thus read the abstract calendar.
I could go on, it did take me four or five years to figure out. The painting's surface is laid out in a minimalist style, post-painterly abstraction with overtones of expressionism point back to Kendall Walton's essay and ask can a painting be anything other than an exact replica of itself, anything other than paint, or is it a product of the viewers perception and cultural roots? Abstract Expressionism, Post Painterly Abstraction and Minimalism where part of a whole although each believed they were sufficiently separate from the other, such are the component parts of modernism as distinct from and yet part of the fine arts. That being said the Symmetry of Time has at its core a specific meaning and trap into which anyone can fall if they choose to go off on their own interpretations without considering the aims of the painting. Just as the first chapter of Genesis says that the Sun, Moon and Stars were signs for telling the time and the seasons, so too for reasons best know to Sir Isaac Newton he chose to see seven prismatic colours which mystically connected to the days of the week and the seven known visible planets of his day, as well as the notes in the European musical scale. How many colours do you see in a prism, do you hear colours when you see them? Do you rationalise that there are six basic colours or do you empirically observe seven, nine or more distinct prismatic colours? I'll leave it there for now, paintings can have specific meanings, either conveying those meanings through design and expression by themselves or by forming part of a wider interpretation which mightn't have anything to do with the artist's intentions. Does my painting have sufficient clarity to convey its meaning or will it be a mere backdrop to other narratives of the day? Invariably I can do nothing else to ensure clarity but do draw comfort in knowing the trap is set, the troll mechanism is in the public domain. I may even have fallen in my own trap.
