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I paint using lines that evoke the optical effect of collapsing space, creating perceptual puzzles. These accumulations cause the eye to focus and re-focus, producing visual and emotional tension. Interpolation, visual disorientation and vibration make the paintings shift and rumble in one’s gaze, as the lines break out of the picture plane, sliding down the sides of the panels and over the edges. I use the shadows cast by arrangements of multiple panels to transform the paintings into three-dimensional objects: as my painted lines appear to jump across the space between panels and connect them, they produce the visual experience of the panel folding into and out from the wall. The wall space becomes a compositional element in simultaneous readings of the painting: at first the panels appear singly, then the lines and color pull the panels together perceptually, forming one large painting. I mean to create a meditative and charged space with my paintings, which are inspired by landscapes, translating the color and rhythms I’ve observed in natural phenomena like sunsets.
mel prest 2008.
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