The Missing Link

It's been staring at me from my bulletin board all this time.

What is it that will allow me to make a connection between the deliberate style of work I have used to create my Cityscapes series, and the more intuitive play with colour and shape that I also enjoy?

I think I can see the answer in this uncredited photo, torn from a travel magazine some months ago. It's a photo of Tenerife, which I was lucky enough to visit this spring. Like so many cliffside towns in the Mediterranean area, it's architectural and organic at the same time. Grids, interlocking shapes, square-in-a-square: all my favourite elements.

At left is a small piece I made a year ago, titled "Square / Unsquare". It is mounted on a small canvas, so it stands away from the wall when hung, and casts a shadow. I would love to make more pieces like this, perhaps larger and in various colour palettes. It's a very different way of working.

I'd like to think that the two approaches would complement each other, and that I could shift from one style to the other and back again.

I knew there was a connection beween Square / Unsquare and my Cityscapes, and I think I'm on my way to figuring it out.