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| The Geometry of Light No. 7, Waiting for Divine Intervention 2011.Gold leaf (24 carat), natural & mineral pigments in Strasbourg turpentine & oil on linen on panel.Diptych: 60 x 106.4 cm / 23.6 x 42 ins. |
| The Spiritual Nude Introduction Throughout history, the nude, whether male or female, when expressed as a unity of imagination and perception, invariably exhibits a dignity which far removes it from social concepts of nakedness. With each age, the nude whether in painting or sculpture has undergone its own transformation becoming modified and redefined in the process. My redefinition of the nude focuses on the “perception” that our corporeality is an extension of a transcendent reality. |
| The Real and the Imaginary C. G. Jung wrote in ‘Mysterium Coniunctionis’ (vol. 14 of his collected writings): “The existence of a transcendental reality is indeed evident in itself, but is uncommonly difficult for our consciousness to construct intellectual models which would give a graphic description of the reality we have perceived”. My insight into this fundamental issue has changed over the years from my dynamic ephemeral figures of the 1980’s to my most recent polychromatic nudes which attest this basic precept that the archetypal world inside ourselves is just as real - or imaginary - as the physical world we inhabit. |
| The Drawing and Painting Nearly all my work starts with drawing from the life model or occasionally ancient Greek sculptures. The work explores each model’s kinaesthetic awareness through spontaneous and undirected movement. Each drawing session thus becomes a minimalist theatre of the imagination. The paintings are developed from this material. My work is an exploration of the nude as the central and fundamental archetype of human existence. The archetype is not a thing in itself, but an experience of the spirit. The paintings focus on the integration of the figure and its dynamic energy field or aura. This sometimes takes on its own abstract form as in the diptychs of the ‘Chromatic Sequences’ - like standing in front of a mirror and seeing one's own immortality reflected from the mortal perspective. |
| The Pigments and Gold Leaf The natural and mineral pigments I use not only harmonise with pure gold leaf, but also produce a very different palette of colour and luminosity compared to modern synthetic pigments whether in oil, fir balsam resins, tempera or distemper binding mediums. The pigments include lapis lazuli, azurite, malachite, cinnabar, orpiment, realgar, vivianite, purpurite, red and green jaspers, stibnite, pyrolusite, cerussite, galena, calcite, quartz and Japanese oyster-shell white (Gofun). Other natural pigments include natural indigo, the root madders, cochineal red, and earth and ochre pigments. I have published three papers on mineral pigment preparation and application since 2000. |
Solo show at the Walter Wickiser Gallery, Chelsea, New York, Sept. 2009.
| Rare cinnabar crystals broken out of a calcite matrix. Purchased Aug. 2010. |
| Copyright © Michael Price Inc. |
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A Comparison of European and Arabic Applications of Euclidean Geometry (excerpt from my manuscript: "A Renaissance of Colour and Composition". In order to fully understand the possibilities of the implementation of geometry in Renaissance art, it is helpful to compare the geometry of the intricate designs of Arabic art which share the same foundation of Euclidean geometry. In Arabic designs, the application of pure-form geometry (Islamic patterns) derives mainly from tessellations (repeated geometric shapes that fit together without leaving any spaces) in which a variety of intersections produce hexagons, octagons as well as the pentagon and decagon. The following simplified diagram compares and contrasts the European and Arabic development from Euclidean geometry. The European development is based upon the square and rectangle with its inner divisions in which the central perspective system leads to a theoretical point - the vanishing point. The Arabic development starts from the purest geometrical "figure", the point or dot from which interlocking circles provide the structure for polygons and their theoretically infinite expansion from that point. Left: A √2 rectangle (1 to the square root of 2) with its inner divisions (blue dashed lines). The central vanishing point lies on the horizon (blue horizontal line) and the vertical centre line (red dashed line). Possible perspective lines (red arrows) converge on the vanishing point. Right: Hexagonal tessellations based upon a simple grid of interlocking circles expanding from a point marked in blue. |
| Leïla, 28th Dec 2011, No. 1 |
| Leïla, 28th Dec 2011, No. 2 |
