blog – Page 10 – Deidre Adams

Continuously Variable Physical Quantities

Continuously Variable Physical Parameters, 36 x 36 inches, acrylic on panel. ©Deidre Adams

Here we have another recently completed painting. The title comes from the definition of “analog.” I’ve been working on this one on and off for several years also, and it has had several wildly different lives. It just cannot be helped, I suppose. Here are a couple of details.

October 19th, 2015|Art|2 Comments

Consilience

Consilience, 108 x 60 inches (triptych), acrylic on panel. ©Deidre Adams

Consilience
In science and history, consilience refers to the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can “converge” to strong conclusions. That is, when multiple sources of evidence are in agreement, the conclusion can be very strong even when none of the individual sources of evidence are very strong on their own. Most established scientific knowledge is supported by a convergence of evidence: if not, the evidence is comparatively weak, and there will not likely be a strong scientific consensus.
(Wikipedia)

A couple of years ago, I read a book called Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson (available for download in PDF form). From the back cover blurb: “…Biologist Edward O. Wilson believes that all knowledge is intrinsically unified, and that behind disciplines as diverse as physics and biology, anthropology and the arts, lies a small number of natural laws, whose interlocking he calls consilience.”

I like the idea of the “unity of all knowledge.” It mirrors what I’ve tried to do in this painting, which is to take a wide variety of disparate elements and unify them into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

As often happens with very large objects, the overall effect can be difficult to imagine from viewing a small image. So here are some detail shots.

September 29th, 2015|Art|Comments Off

Work in progress

Just a quick one today – working on this painting and feeling pretty good about the progress. I started this one over a year ago, and it has mostly just sat languishing in the studio. Every now and then I’ve dibbled and dabbled on it here and there, but I was feeling lost about the direction and totally not inspired.

But I recently had some sales (thanks Point Gallery!), which is great. And there’s nothing like having them ask me “are you working on anything big right now?” for a possible corporate client to light a fire under me. This one is 3 separate 36×60 panels, for a total of 108 x 60 inches. This is the biggest painting I’ve ever done, and I definitely don’t have the space or the strength to handle anything of that size except in pieces like this.

It’s also much looser than anything I’ve done recently, which was a challenge for me, yet spiritually freeing and very fun. I have a little bit more refining to do here and there, but I think it’s mostly done and won’t change a whole lot now.

Here’s what it looked like a year ago. One of the things that was stopping me was that I loved that large white shape two-thirds of the way across, and I couldn’t figure out how to move on without destroying it. But you see it is gone now, sacrificed in the name of progress.

Adams-IMAG2699-

September 23rd, 2015|Work in progress|Comments Off