Dispersion Bloom (Magnolia) is another experiment involving the interaction of geometric abstraction and representation. I began with a matrix of hand painted circles whose colours are derived from a beautiful magnolia tree I encountered almost daily in Bremen every spring. I projected a photographic image of the tree onto the matrix and blocked out the sky – the negative space – around the tree, leaving the spring coloured bloom matrix visible. Within the space of the exposed matrix, I approximated the ongoing branches and tree trunks wherever they aligned with the matrix. This is what causes the geometric fragmentation. I like it better than the way a matrix of pixels captures colour.

I enjoy looking at the result. It approximates the wonder I witness in the patterned variations of the blossoms I gaze at as they sway in the breeze. I couldn’t copy such an experience; to render the tree as it appears to the eye wouldn’t capture the feeling of an underlying order that unfolds within each creaturely being as it asserts its own way through possibilities of growth and living.