Concentric Convolutions

Concentric Convolutions

Small format acrylic on canvas and masonite paintings

The center, I had been taught as a student,” is too be avoided at all costs compositionally”. Yet, many cultures have embraced this circular center from basketry, the oculus of the Pantheon in Rome, to the infamous stained glass Rose window found on the south portal of the Gothic church. Radial balance demands that the eye to continuously survey all elements within this self-contained compositional universe. These concentric convolutions, as I refer to them, involve impasto acrylic applied to square small format canvases and panels. The square ironically, frames these images. We can see concentric convolutions in many forms in nature .These include, beyond our planet, the imagery revealed to us from the Hubble telescope unveils a world of giant abstract forms –nebulae, light years away. On planet earth we can see similar concentric convolutions in the human eye, whirlpools, pine cones, cabbage,satellite hurricane imagery, sunflowers, the human finger print, the whirl hair pattern atop the human head and even how water swirls before it travels down a sink drain. Electron microscopes reveal   microscopic Adenovirus particles which have circular patterns. It is this type of continuous variation I desire to explore in this series of works with seemingly endless variations.

I notice swirling patterns of dirt and pecans which coalsece into spiral shapes . It can also be scientific as theroretical physicists have examined the painterly drips and streks of Jackson Pollack’s painting process as fractals found in crystals and galaxies.The work of Marc Tobey( which Jackson  Pollack ij the 1940’s ,studied at length) such as White Journey painted in 1956, the year of Pollack’s death, is also examined as the nervous brushwork appears as action filled quarks and nuetrons.