The square is given to us. Or more specifically, the quadrilateral, which includes rectangles. We inherit it from the culture, from Euclidian geometry. It's one of humanity's finest inventions. It's decided for us. All we have to do is decide what to put inside it.
In 2017 I turned my back 180 degrees on geometry and spent a whole year doing paintings formed of irregular shapes. I wanted executive control of the whole aesthetic experience from the outside in. Most of the results were very unsatisfactory and some were worked on again much later. Like this one.
This was probably the best of a bad bunch.
Reflecting on that year today, ultimately the experiments were disappointing because my mental model is still hooked on that other aesthetic hand-me-down, the pictorial window. Even as someone who has experimented for 40 odd years with all sorts of styles and approaches to painting, my tendency is still to look into pictures - the illusionistic space, rather than at paintings - the physical objects.
So, whilst I was working with an irregularly shaped pictorial space, I was still treating the image as if it belonged in a square window. I was looking for a solution to the wrong problem. There was no way to square the bind I found myself in!
Except to return to the square. But even three years later, I still hadn't entirely abandoned the idea of alternatively shaped artwork. I was attracted to the idea of the jolt of surprise it would provide spectators who expect to see square or rectangle paintings. This was the original configuration of a five panel piece from 2020 called the Imaginary Cage.
Eventually, I re-jigged it to it's final setting. The 'home' setting, dare I say.
These days I'm more than happy to have one big decision decided for me. Painting is hard enough!
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