Vessels is a series of paintings developed through the pandemic, a visual thought experiment using the Venn Diagram to establish a self-directed, systematic approach to making paintings that "generates the thing to be done" (Catherine Harty 2021). Exploring the history of vessels, seven basic shapes were chosen from Turkey 1547 AD, Iran 1190 AD, North America 1000 AD, Sudan 3500 BC, Thailand 250 BC, Pakistan 2500 BC, and Syria 1287 AD, for their simplicity of form, multi-time, multi-national and geo-political implications. Reducing them to silhouettes and superimposing them on top of each other to create abstract patterns and the illusion of layers through colour juxtaposition. I used colour separations to determine which colours to use. By using diagrams that interact with the world rather than representing it opens the possibility of a different kind of engagement with painting.
“It is clear that the interplay between these vessels, which represent such a broad expanse of geography, politics, and time, is an examination of multiculturalism; how cultures evolve, influence each other or even remain isolated. As the series evolves, the works become increasingly complicated until the artist sets aside her rigid parameters. Individual colours are still visible but as fragments rather than blocks; colours as federalism ceding from nation states, perhaps.” (Oliver Sears 2022)
Vessels work was exhibited at 'Coalescence', The Lavit Gallery, Cork, 2024 and Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, 2022, funded through a Cork County Council, Creative Artists Bursary 2022, and exhibited online at 'The Time of Our Lives' 2020 and 'New & Recent Work' 2021 at www.oliversearsgallery.com
Also see videos Vessels Research 2020 & texts Cantos-Thinking Vessels 2023
Vessels is a series of paintings conceived as visual thought experiments that use Venn diagrams (images that interact with each other and the world rather than representing it) to explore representation. The Venn diagrams become guides for a self-directed, systematic approach to making paintings, which challenges the author's dynamic by placing self-expression in the background. Exploring the history of vessels and how their shapes change through time and their cultural identities, settling on seven basic shapes from Turkey, Iran, North America, Sudan, Thailand, Pakistan and Syria they have been reduced to silhouettes and superimposed one on top of the other to suggest Venn diagrams creating the illusion of layers through colour juxtaposition and the use of separation colours magenta, cyan and yellow. The vessels have been chosen for their multi-time, multi-national implications. This work is a call for collective global unity and a contemplation of its complexities through colour as light in the form of colour separations.
The framework holding this light uses a 'Venn logic' which suggests a self-directed concept for making the work that "generates the thing to be done." (Catherine Harty 2021)
“It is clear that the interplay between these vessels, which represent such a broad expanse of geography, politics, and time, is itself an examination of multiculturalism; how cultures evolve, influence each other or even remain isolated. As the series evolves, the works become increasingly complicated until the artist sets aside her rigid parameters. Individual colours are still visible but as fragments rather than blocks; colours as federalism ceding from nation states, perhaps.” (Oliver Sears 2022)
Painted from the perspective of refracted light, the three basic colours, cyan, yellow and magenta, make up all the other colours possible in the world. I followed the ‘Venn logic’ of colour choice suggested through the layering process. This created an illusion of layering, while each colour was chosen and painted separately.
I chose watercolour paint to make this work as it offers a huge variety of colours to explore, and they dry quickly, so that I can develop the ideas in rapid succession, and the colours can be very intense due to their transparent nature. This process of development also inserted a political dimension/implication to the work through the mixing of cultures as they were placed one on top of another and through the mixing of colours at the points of contact with each other.
Like all painting series, the work then took on a conversation with itself, and I became the facilitator of that conversation. This included breaking the rules I had established and experimenting with random colour associations, as well as pivoting and moving the vessel shapes around. This pushed the work towards states that suggest broken or collapsed diagrams. The ‘Venn logic’ established in the early part of the series became obliterated.
Vessels was exhibited at 'Coalescence' exhibition, The Lavit Gallery, Cork 2024, and at Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin 2022, funded through a Cork County Council Creative Artists Bursary 2022; exhibited online at 'The Time of Our Lives' 2020 and 'New & Recent Work' 2021 www.oliversearsgallery.com
Also see Videos Vessels Research 2020 & Texts Cantos-Thinking Vessels 2023
The vessels used in this work come from different countries; some are thousands of years old, some hundreds. They have been reduced to silhouettes, superimposed one on top of the other and painted as transparent colour separation films, like a Venn diagram. (sold)
The vessels used in this work come from different countries; some are thousands of years old, some hundreds. They have been reduced to silhouettes, superimposed one on top of the other and painted as transparent colour separation films, like a Venn diagram. Shown as part of 'Time of Our Lives' online exhibition Oliver Sears Gallery 2020. (sold)
The vessels used in this work come from different countries; some are thousands of years old, some hundreds. They have been reduced to silhouettes, superimposed one on top of the other and painted as transparent colour separation films, like a Venn diagram. (sold)
The vessels used in this work come from different countries; some are thousands of years old, some hundreds. They have been reduced to silhouettes, superimposed one on top of the other and painted as transparent colour separation films, like a Venn diagram.
The vessels used in this work come from different countries; some are thousands of years old, some hundreds. They have been reduced to silhouettes, superimposed one on top of the other and painted as transparent colour separation films, like a Venn diagram. (sold)
The vessels used in this work come from different countries; some are thousands of years old, some hundreds. They have been reduced to silhouettes, superimposed on top of each other and painted as transparent colour separation films, like a Venn diagram. Shown as part of 'New & Recent Work' online exhibition with the Oliver Sears Gallery 2021. (sold)
The vessels used in this work come from different countries; some are thousands of years old, some hundreds. They have been reduced to silhouettes, superimposed on top of each other and painted as transparent colour separation films, like a Venn diagram. (sold)
The vessels used in this work come from different countries; some are thousands of years old, some hundreds. They have been reduced to silhouettes, superimposed one on top of the other and painted as transparent colour separation films, like a Venn diagram. (sold)