About these Paintings

The human body has a continual presence in my work as an anthropomorphic mass of geometric shapes. Other geometric forms I favor evoke pattern, matrix and environment -- associations of location. I am interested in what it means to have an intellect, instincts, and a spirit, and how these oppositions inherent in us come into balance. This is a problem for every individual human life, for human society, and human culture through history. I draw on many sources for inspiration: myth, philosophy, psychology, literature and scientific theory.

The images for my acrylic paintings are derived through a combination of traditional sketching and computer modeling. The designs are then transferred to canvas and the paintings are hand-finished using an exacting hard-edge taping technique.

LIMINAL SERIES

There is a very real world of scientific equations and visual constructs. This is a series of work that I am currently engaged in which poses the question: Are we disappearing into that world or do we find ourselves somehow mirrored in it? These paintings (LogicGate: The Thinking Fire, pictured) visually explore the idea of liminality, or "being in the threshold, " in relation to the scientific knowledge that informs us and changes our world at an ever-increasing pace. Where is our place in all this change? I see the threshold as the defining place of our time.

STEREOPAIRS

Even in the time of Euclid it was recognized that humans see with binocular vision, a triangulation is taking place whenever we scan a field and focus in on something. These paintings (Rasa 3, pictured) are side-by-side images that are meant to be viewed using free vision, or cross-eyed vision. These pieces are conceived with an understanding of the function of convergence and disparity in the vision process, and the realization that we focus where lines of sight cross. Crossing the eyes to view the images is just doing intentionally what the eyes do naturally. In addition to providing depth cues, I am using the stereo technique to explore visual syncopation, optical color mixing and kinetic effects. Each painting has as its common template a pair of abstract, architectonic, figural forms. They are concerned with the dynamic interplay of "2" and can be thought of as a visual metaphors to explore aspects of splitting, doubling, occlusion, opposition, creation and wholeness.

All Images © Marjorie Mikasen

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