Colour Building

 

Study for something else, acrylic and oil on canvas [61 x 46cm]

Edge to edge full spectrum colour.

3 dimensional space / 2 dimensional surface... 

Divided in half and then quartered, vertical / horizontal.

The painting constructed, an image of two blocks or beams with coloured faces, 

Stacked next to, or on top of one and other.

If you were to pull apart these objects, you would see that they are hollow.

An open ended column, with no top or no bottom.

The space inside and around them extends outward / inward... 

Towards eternity.

©ADG2024

Day 365

©ADG2023

A Light Inside

A Light Inside II, oil on canvas [152 x 92cm]

Solo presentation of new work at Our Neon Foe 411 Parramatta Rd, Leichhardt. From March 22nd to April 22nd, 2022.

 

Exhibition text by Elliot Waugh and Priscilla Bourne.

//

If you were caught in a prism, an endless Escher-like journey of colour, where would you end up? If you followed the lines, forever folding in on themselves, at what point would you stop?

Adrian De Giorgio's work holds the make-up of light, the devil’s trap of geometry and the heat of our souls. Looking at his work advance, you’re propelled through 10 years of soft focus meditation - the inner made outer.

The profound meaning of colour and form is not lost on Adrian. While the so-called language of colour has remained in debate since at least Isaac Newton’s time, it’s survived many attempts to classify or codify it. Newton famously introduced another colour - Indigo - into the classical conception of the spectrum, bringing the total to a mystically significant seven. So even before the orthodox account had been written on the physical properties of light, an occult (and highly subjective) aspect had snuck in.

If we don’t all see colour the same way, what does that say for the validity of any overarching ‘language’ or ‘system’? Even a highly evolved conception of colour such as Kandinsky’s will never be authoritative - it can only aspire to the condition of internal coherence.

Far from simply a vernacular, or a swatch book, Adrian’s work is a psychic analogue - an expansion into this realm from the twitchy tendrils tugging at the veil from the other side.

Colour is a dance, a ritual - its revelations are a courtly reiteration of the same gestures in a different order, endlessly shuffled and reshuffled, flashing brilliantly in a bewildering show. Adrian’s canvases are a highly refined version of this same ritual, enacted in a personal theatre, with whispers and intimations of light stealing in from stage right.

In the end, while we can’t all perceive the same wavelengths in precisely the same way, we can all indulge in a moment of communion with colour - a unique experience that ranges from psychic quietude to psychedelic frenzy. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that both the name and the configuration of this show - A Light Inside - reflects the idea of a kind of secular chapel, a refuge from the tribulations of having a body.

//

 

©ADG2022

 

 

Aberrations

 

 

Acrylic on hand shaped board [120 x 40cm]

 

This is the first painting in a series (Aberrations) that was completed earlier in August this year.

 

The logic comes from a direct relationship between the container and the contained, a repetition of coloured bands that fill space concentrically from the outside (perimeter) shape and as previous work has done, accumulates the errors of the hand into an undulating chaotic wobble.

 

The vision for this work came to me one night as I woke the perimeter of my mind acted as the bounding shape to which the coloured lines of light radiated inward towards a central emptiness. I was so taken with this vision that I got up to make a drawing, recording what was seen.

 

This system of filling shapes with colour has now well established itself as a current obsession and many more drawings have been made, some of which have evolved quite dramatically. I look forward to producing more paintings in this way, both on canvas and shaped board, before sharing exactly where this work has taken me.

©ADG2021

Sun stroke

Acrylic on hand shaped plywood [84 x 54cm]

This painting was made with one continuous stroke, a single brush loaded with the six colour spectrum R O Y G I V was dragged along the surface allowing the colours to mix in its trail.

I am experimenting more and more with these colour limitations, partially as a way of exercising my understanding of colour as a steady series of transitioning hues but also as a way of thinking about light and its interactions with the rods and cones of the eye.

It is simply a coincidence that the cross section of a cone is an ellipse.

©ADG2021

Solid Vision

Posca paint maker on pine [240 x 24cm]

This work came out of the process of making other work, the underlying surface revealed, a solid bar of undulating coloured energy. The detail of rough edges is diminished with distance, appearing hard edged from afar and softer or woven on close inspection.

I was very happy to have had this work exhibited at the National Art School (Sydney) as part of the Dobell Drawing Prize #22. It was a thrill to see it there in the gallery, somewhat out of place amongst all the other drawing.

This significant work continues to feed into what I am thinking and making now. A new body of work is slowly emerging, with a returned focus on painting and surface.

©ADG2021
 

Dobell Drawing Prize #22

 

I am very honored to have been selected as a finalist for this years Dobell Drawing Prize. 

My entry is a large Posca on board drawing (2.4 metre pine plank), I wanted to make something that stands over you, tall and thin like a tear in the surface if reality. I am very excited to see it exhibited among the work of so many other excellent artists.

The exhibition will be installing this week and opening later in the month.

Snow Crash

Acrylic on canvas [91 x 61cm]

This painting, the first of 2021, follows on from work I started making in 2018.

The glowing line on a field of noise has become more complex thanks to the geometric experiments and insights of drawings made last year. Here I am using the same tessellating forms as my recent watercolour work, in which a composition is discovered by projecting lines from the corners of a grid, moving up one side and then reflected down the other. In the execution of this painting I have again attempted to retain something of the scratchiness of a drawn surface and allowed for many minor imperfections and bleeds to occur. 

A balancing of elements in this signal-to-noise ratio.

©ADG2021
 

Deep water

Pen and watercolour on watercolour paper

 

Recentley I have been experimenting further with watercolour. I started with some small ones (A5) before moving to a larger format (A3), intuitively choosing colour and shade, working quickly allowing for areas of bleeding and incidental colour mixing.

I am making these thinking that they could potentially be translated into acrylic on canvas and to better understand the geometries of this system. I am attempting to create some patterned surfaces that will operate as autostereograms (better known as Magic Eye pictures) that produce the illusion of a three-dimensional scene. I have also made some digital examples of this technique and the effect works as described... 

By focusing through the surface of the image an illusion of receding space can be seen, and by narrowing sections of the pattern a gradation of depth can be achieved. This composition almost achieves the desired effect.

©ADG2021

Something between us

Posca on board [81 x 27cm]

This new one is on hand cut ply-wood with a backing frame I constructed. The colours used are a sequence of Red / Green / Blue and a black with two greys. Here I was trying to capture something of a grease smudge on a smartphone screen, a fascinating analogue glitch that makes the typically invisible (glass) visible in a dazzling spectrum of refracted light. Because of the hand-made board I primed around the outside edge to seal it and so I decided to carry the line work off the edge also.

©ADG2020

 

 

Cavern

 

Vector illustration, [1,334 x 750 pixels (326 ppi)]

These new compositions generated a desire to make another wallpaper image for iPhone. The great thing about this geometry is it is totally adaptable to any square format. Feel free to use this on your phone, but be sure to alter it to the right specifications for you screen (scale it within the frame [set to still]) and enjoy this digital cavern as a moody site for all your floating app icons.

©ADG2020

Albedo 0.30

Graphite and watercolour on canvas [50 x 40cm]

This panting is a study made using the same geometries as the recent Posca work but here is filled using a system of three blended colours alternating in left to right, top to bottom rotation within each shape. I have been making more and more drawings with this system to better understand the various interactions. 

Here, perhaps because of the use of expired watercolours, the result has strange echoes of early 20th century abstraction like those made by artists like Paul Klee or Sonia Delaunay (this was unintentional).

I am continuing experimentation with these forms, persisting with intuitive colour relations and with the purchase of a new watercolour set I expect this work to evolve further.

©ADG2020

Stay tuned

Posca on board [36 x 28cm]

This is one of a new series of drawings, and a return of the use of Posca paint-markers in my work. Following on from the geometries of recent work (based off the twelve point division of a regular format), I compose a pattern across one third of the board and then repeat and extend tessellated segments edge to edge. This is both a way of discovering unique shaped figures within a regular format and filling that regular format (rectangle) completely.

After so much shaped work I often return to standard formats to develop an approach for supporting work on canvas and to exercise a thorough understanding of the patterns generated.

The unexpected appearance of these patterns is enticing as I see their parallel to digital glitches on computer screens or a bad signal on a cathode-ray tube (CRT) television, producing analogue distortions like a vertical hold rolling screen.

©ADG2020

Space Filler

            Acrylic on hand shaped board [122 x 61cm]

A new painted object that subsumes all my previous work into one intersecting point. The twelve sided face (dodecagon) is cut from a standard rectangular board. Pulsating coloured lines weave internal geometries across the surface and three textured neutral tones hold illusory light and shadow like the facets of a cut gem stone.

This object can be hung on both vertical and horizontal planes, with no right side up. The space of nothing in the centre can be read as the closest face of the object and simultaneously as a distant void.

All rocks are from outer-space.

 

©ADG2020 

Fabricated Memories

Acrylic and permanent marker on hand shaped board [81 x 51cm]

From the beginning of this year I have been working with a geometry based within a twelve sided shape (dodecagon). It is a fascinating limitation to work within and over the past few months I have discovered a series of compositions that I am currently translating from drawings into painting.

The technique of this work is a continuation of previous paintings like 'Static Animation' and others made during 2018. In this variation I have used my present interest in the total spectrum of colour, which has also become a fascinating limitation to explore in and of itself.

The black marker was used in stages to cover the coloured ground while retaining visible traces of the scribbling process and allowing moments of translucent imperfection to expose the under painting. This was done as a way of maintaining qualities of the original drawing within the painted object, and to display qualities of 'rainbow scratch paper' for which this work was partially inspired.

©ADG2020

Acid Test

Acrylic on canvas [51cm x 41cm]

It has been difficult restarting my practice during the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had already been significantly disrupted during the past six months, moving house three times and spending a period of time overseas. I now find myself in a new place, without proper studio space and within the confines of restricted movement.

Throughout this time I have continued to draw and record a procession of ideas, new formats and associations to themes of time, space and the Sun. Things can move quite fast with drawing and I have much new work that I am eager to produce.

I expected something different from the results of returning to painting. This canvas was a compromise, starting small to get the ball rolling (so to speak), it has done its job and I am now working on some new shaped works and one larger canvas. All fighting for attention within my limited working space and sometimes chaotic, stressed out headspace.

It's good to be back.

©ADG2020

SNO 160 _Sequence Error

Install shots from my recent exhibition at Sydney Non Objective curated by Ruark Lewis.

This was a great experience for me, all the work was made in my Lismore studio this year and was a direct response to intense heat of this place. Acrylic paint seemed to dry instantly when applied to the surface of a canvas, which was a perfect condition for this one line at a time painting process. The climate here spurred me on, adapting my previous work of Posca on board to acrylic on canvas and into a scale previously unthinkable with the limits of paint pens.

All photos by Sarah Kukathas of Document Photography.

Screensaver

Vector illustration, [1,334 x 750 pixels (326 ppi)]

These new lock-screen and home-screen compositions were made for iPhone 7 due to a recent upgrade from my previous model (iPhone 5C).

This composition took many iterations to arrive at and I worked though various grid arrangements and colour sequences before reaching this point. For the colour I wanted to utilize primarily the additive scale of cyan, magenta and yellow where secondary and tertiary colours emerge through blending.

©ADG2019

_SEQUENCE ERROR

I am excited for my upcoming Solo show at Sydney Non-Objective in their new Rosebury location.

This will be an exhibition of new paintings all made this year in Lismore. The work is a coherent series of sequential paintings, starting with my first work on canvas (pictured) made with this technique, all the way to my most recent iteration.

_SEQUENCE ERROR will focus on my core practice of seriality, and display how I utilize this method to evolve, complicate and refine my work.

Mirror Pool

Acrylic on canvas [101 x 76cm]

An image of no thing. A thing between all categories of things, a visible nothing like hearing silence. A potential something, energy contained but not yet used. Ripples through emptiness, that with time fills the blank surface with colour.

These images first appear in my mind, with eyes closed I continue to see patterns of shifting geometries. I understand these structures as innate. All building is an external mirroring of some kind of internal architecture, and to mirror is to understand.

©ADG2019