I began Slave to the Rhythm with a matrix of freely painted circles, which means, I didn’t measure a grid along the edges of the canvas like I have with all of the works up to this point. The shock came when I measured the circles I had painted and discovered they are basically 10 cm. in diameter – the exact same size as all the works I’ve done this year. (I intend to work with far more unruly matrices of circles in the coming works.) Hence, the title of the work. I have opted for a rather regular, dynamic composition that is a development on a previous work, called, Brutalist Dusk.

With these works, I continue to entertain the idea that beauty is wound up in a mystery of life: why does one flower express itself this way, while another flower expresses itself that way? These works grow forms within a matrix of circles in which different possibilities for pattern are expressed in parallel with one another through colour, line and form. Like flowers, these forms grow from the same origins but present different qualities. The mystery is expressed, is in the open. It is not obscured. (Ok, it can be hard to see the matrix that the forms are grown upon.) This is what I understand to be a living connection to a mystery of reality.

I have yet to tackle an approach toward how symbolic languages — human languages — might find a connection to this mystery without succumbing to a romantic death cult. I still love clouds, smoke, stumps and topped trees, deserts, lakes and man made pools, lonely phalluses, irrational and imaginary numbers, sculpted shrubs and skies of every colour. My head and heart seem to be working toward this.