Posts Tagged ‘geometric art’

New Modern Graphic Painting: Hexagonal Banfield Forcefield

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
modern graphic painting

I would like to introduce you to my newest painting, Hexagonal Banfield Forcefield. Measuring 81 centimeters high by 61 inches wide (32 x 24 inches), this modern graphic painting was produced between August 19 – 31, 2010, and underwent a few minor adjustments since.

Banfield Football Shirt

The inspiration for this piece is a football (soccer) shirt worn by the Argentine team Banfield in 2006, shown at right. I love the diagonal slash, as well as the clashing orange and green color scheme.

The hexagonal pattern coursing through the background of my painting is one I invented over the summer. And I planted a couple of oblique (or not so oblique) references to corporate logos, too. Can you name them?

To be certain, the finished product was a giant migration away from the initial point of inspiration. For modern graphic paintings like these, that’s the way it should be. Each of these compositions opens the door to seemingly infinite approaches to color, form, and combinations thereof. I like having room to maneuver and improvise.

What’s more, this way of composing a painting affords incredible, inexhaustible flexibility to invent something new. At the same time, it is also very challenging to find balance in the right places. I am trying to strike a balance of dynamic forms.

And so, you will note that I have taken a break from producing minimalist paintings for a while. The ideas are still coming along, however. One day I will shift gears again, I am sure.

Thanks for reading.

Grant Wiggins

Dietmar Winkler: Posters for MIT

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Something really cool happened at work last week. Naturally, it had nothing to do with work! A designer I work with brought in a pair of Communication Arts magazines from 1970 and 1971. Being inspired by the art of that period, I was transfixed by what I found between the covers of those volumes.

What particularly caught my attention were Dietmar Winkler’s posters for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, dating to 1968 and 1969. His designs were so good, they had me thinking to myself, “I wish I had painted that!” The second orange poster below (the horizontal composition) especially blew my mind.

dietmar winkler posters for MIT

>> Continue reading 'Dietmar Winkler: Posters for MIT'

New profile on geometric art website geoform.net

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

I am very pleased to say that I now have an artist profile on geoform.net, “an online scholarly art project dedicated to exploring and documenting the use of geometric form and structure in contemporary abstract art.”

geometric art website geoform.net
Geoform.net showcases leading artists in the contemporary geometric art.

I thank geoform.net’s editor, Julie Karabenick, for inviting me to have a presence on her site. It is truly an honor.

Since its launch in May 2005, geoform.net has grown to encompass more than 1000 artists from around the world. The carefully curated site brings together, according to Ms. Karabenick, “artists who have demonstrated a serious and long-standing commitment to abstract art that features geometric forms and/or structures.”

For the moment, my profile is featured on the site’s homepage, side-by-side with legendary hard-edge painter June Harwood. (Ms. Harwood was an integral member of the California Hard-Edge painting movement in the early 1960s.)

This is second time this year in which my work has shown next to Ms. Harwood’s — something I find fascinating. In April, my painting Spaceloop Two showed alongside one of her “loop” paintings at Thomas Hayes Gallery, in Hollywood, as a part of the gallery’s grand opening.

Grant Wiggins

Now showing paper paintings in ‘Meltdown’ at Soyal Gallery

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
paper paintings soyal gallery

One of the shows I’m participating in this summer is Meltdown, at Soyal Gallery in downtown Scottsdale. Bringing together the work of more that 30 emerging artists from around the planet, the exhibition takes aim at the mind-melting heat we experience every summer in Arizona.

For the occasion, I have produced a series of eight “paper paintings” — experimental compositions made of paper — that share a common geometric motif.

I approach making them the same way that I do with paint. I very much enjoy working with paper, and I believe that I do not do so enough. Paper gives me a bit of freedom to try out new shapes and color combinations. There’s vast opportunity to encounter “happy accidents” and explore them accordingly.

I also had fun generating titles for this set of new works, which share the word “meltdown.” Titles include Abstract Plastic Forest Meltdown, Alarmist Pharmacist Meltdown and Cape Canaveral Carnival Meltdown.

See for yourself at Soyal Gallery, 4200 N. Marshall Way, Suites 2 and 3, until August 12.

Geometric Abstraction: Fall 2009 Collection of Paintings Now Online

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

With the arrival of the autumnal equinox, at 21:18 UTC (2:18 PDST), I present to you my very own “fall harvest”: my Fall 2009 Collection of paintings.

I call it Circles with Corners, and you will find it in this gallery of contemporary abstract paintings.

The collection brings together 18 works that I have painted since early July. It encompasses 10 full-scale paintings, 2 smaller works and 6 studies. All are acrylic on canvas. Although I worked very hard to produce as much, I surely wish I could have made more. I always do.

For that reason, I very well may add more pieces to this collection over the next couple of weeks. There remain a few more ideas I’d like to explore; the autumnal equinox arrived before I could give them form.

Why do I call this collection Circles with Corners? For one, there is a literal sense: The controlling design, which I continue to return to throughout this collection, has a rounded hexagonal shape. It is like a circle with corners, and it embodies my idea of “geometric abstraction.” Two, since I continued to revisit the same design, there is a circularity going on; yet, I also took it in new directions — I turned a corner a few times.

Will there be a Spring 2010 collection? It all depends on how well this concept is received. If you demand one loudly enough, I just might oblige!

I must admit that focusing my creative energy on one goal — a unified collection with a controlling theme of geometric abstraction — has been an exhilarating experience. I’ve learned so much about my art-making process, and I’ve reconnected with my instincts, creatively.

I hope you enjoy the collection, and I look forward to your feedback.

Best,
Grant Wiggins

Three new paintings

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Between February 8 and March 15—a span of 35 days—I produced 8,352 square inches of paintings. And now it’s time to take a break.

Out of this flurry of activity, three new large-scale paintings emerged. The first is Open System, which is 60 inches square (152.4 cm x 152.4 cm) and was produced between February 8 and 20, 2009:

New Painting: Open System
New Painting #1: Open System

Next came Invisible Star, which measures 32 x 66 inches (81.3 x 167.6 cm) and was produced between February 21 and March 3, 2009:

New Painting: Invisible Star
New Painting #2: Invisible Star

And the third piece is Acid Battleship Amylase. This painting also measures 60 inches square (152.4 cm square). I painted it from March 6 to 15, 2009.

New Painting: Acid Battleship Amylase
New Painting #3: Acid Battleship Amylase

Now I will get back to sketches and research: Thinking things through and readying myself for more new paintings.

New painting: Invisible Star

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

While I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog as of late, I’m making up the awkward paucity of posts by pumping out new work. I’ve been motoring away at new paintings lately; I have produced two larger-scale works in the space of three weeks.

Fresh off the easel, below is one of these new paintings, which I finished this evening. The new piece is titled Invisible Star. It measures 32 inches high by 66 inches wide, and is acrylic on canvas. I’ll post a better photo of it when time allows. Gotta split … there’s so much to do!

New Painting

New Painting

New paintings

Friday, May 9th, 2008

I present to you the fruits of the this week’s labor: two new geometric paintings with a flowing design. While I put considerable thought and effort into designing these, when I finished these paintings I felt oddly neutral. Can’t explain why this happens. But it happens, and it’s part of the process. It’s not up to me what the “consensus” will be on these works.

Regardless, I’m in the process of reworking this concept for more paintings—reconsidering how much negative space to let in, what colors to use, how many stripes to involve, etc. While I feel like I’m not there with these, I can live with the uncertainty. And that’s what keeps me going.

Wishing you happiness and the causes of happiness,
—Grant Wiggins

5 new modern geometric paintings

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

Here’s a handful of new modern geometric paintings I’ve completed recently:

modern geometric paintings
modern geometric paintings   modern geometric paintings
modern geometric paintings
modern geometric paintings

From top, they are:

Row one: Fluorescent Brown, 20 x 40 in.
Row two: Warph and Green Machine II, both 30 in. square
Row three: Square Warp, 18 in. square
Row four: Red, Brown and Blue, 10 x 20 in.

Thanks for visiting!

Grant Wiggins

Painting Geometric Shapes

Monday, September 24th, 2007

Lately I’ve been very much into painting geometric shapes. As an example, the painting you see below measures 20″ x 40″ inches, and features fluorescent red, fluorescent blue, and two shades of brown. The combination of colors is exciting and jarring to me.

painting geometric shapes

While I’ve been coming up with a lot of ideas recently, I haven’t quite found the time to make them reality, sadly. I’m thinking about taking a break from minimalist painting for a while. The ideas I have are more about patterns, shapes and colors entwining and colliding. That stuff is so much more exciting to paint.

Otherwise, I haven’t been painting much, because freelance writing and home renovations have been taking over. But that’s all right … I’ll get back to the easel soon enough.

Grant Wiggins