2001

Artist Statement. The Ninth New York Digital Salon.

PERSONA 2

Most of my work originates in one simple idea: to create forms as the outcome of a cybernetic interaction. If a structure (system) gets an input from another one, it reacts and moves to a new state, the output. If there is a feedback between the input and the output, they adjust each other and establish a certain level of stability in their interactions, as in real life situations. My concept is to establish these interactions and interplays between geometrical shapes. Most of the images I create are visual descriptions of these interplays. However, I take great care to encapsulate my painting experience in the aesthetics of the symbols I use.

When I place two shapes into an interactive situation, I have no idea what the resulting image may look like since the building protocol has many random parameters. The final images always override any visual prediction I make during the build-up. In the end, they are so unexpected that they rupture the "monotony" of the execution and trigger an exciting state of surprise, sudden inspiration and visual creativity, close to intuition.

As most images describing a mathematical process, Persona 2 is transparent, has no gender and no front or back. The meaning of the image depends on the compositional context it will be placed in later on. In the case of Persona 2, this context is the relationship between the rectangle of the "canvas" and the silhouette. All visual activities turn inward upon themselves where the story of the work's genesis unfolds as shapes and symbols.

My work often bridges Western technology and Eastern spirituality. Persona 2 is an example of this process. The mathematics and the computer blend their purity and become a metaphor of meditation. The double profile points toward our two sides: the extrovert/centri-fugal and the introvert/centripetal. The latter keeps us in touch with our identity, our own Self.

I limited the colors to a family of powerful grays that is better suited for abstract concepts. These grays remind me of some rich black embroideries by Goya or Velasquez, which I enjoy so much whenever I walk into the museum of my visual memories.

 

Leonardo vol.34, nr. 5, 2001, pp. 524 Digital Salon Artists' Statements.