TWO ADJACENT SQUARES - CONSTRUCTION

© Gillian Wise / Alex Wise

TWO ADJACENT SQUARES - CONSTRUCTION 1966

Gillian Wise (1936 – )

Details

Dimension
50.8 X 76.2 CM
Media
STEEL, PERSPEX, ALUMINIUM AND DARVIC
Accession number
P1561

Summary

The only statement I want to make about these works is to emphasise the different functions of the three dimensional objects and the drawings. The drawings explain the linear path/circuit structures that I often use in the works, but when they become embedded in physical objects these linear ideas take on a different character. Faced with the stimuli and distraction of reflections, texture, weight, space and colour, plus their technique of assembly, our reactions are much more sporadic and variable than in the fantasy space of drawing. What interests me as an artist is to understand this dialogue between physical information and mental concept and to extend our knowledge of it.

The expansion of technical resources that has already become available to us, quite apart from things envisaged, will bring with it the need to think on a pan-technical level. That is, the artist will know less about more things, he cannot ‘feel’ his way over a lifetime of specialisation, as an oil-painter could, for example. Therefore it becomes more important to make a conscious study of how to assess technical means. To learn as much about how we can think as to express what we do think.

Four Artists Reliefs, Constructions and Drawings, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1968.