[March 29, 2007] “Knots and dots” is about the dynamic tension in ideas and feelings between the physical world we see highly defined from afar (knots) and that same world up-close (dots).
What began as an experiment about minimalism in 1980 has evolved into Kolker’s procedure based style of painting which he calls fracolor. Using waffle-glass at first and now fractal computer programs, the artist fractionates the subject image and paints and silk-screens a grid circumscribing colored dots. His palette is founded in light optical and pigment color theories from which he has selected red, blue, green and yellow plus anachromics black and white. Kolker creates shades, tints and tones by mixing colors with black and white while eschewing mixing colors with each other.
Picture a knot such as our necktie, shoelace, pajama-tie or macrame anklet. Picture other knots as used universally by scientists, surgeons, sailors, fisherman, cowboys, hangmen, boy scouts, girl scouts, hairdressers, tailors, bakers and chefs. And of course the intestinal-knot of emotion, a cramped muscle, a knot in lumber, a knot of persons or things, tying the knot of love in marriage and a nautical mile in an hour. Its purpose may be a tie, mark, record or symbol. Picture a knot and you become filled with ideas and feelings.
Picture a dot, a solitary minimal dot from a knot, like the galactic star which is a dot in our universe of matter, space and time, and again you become filled with ideas and feelings.
Paul Kolker: Knots and dots — Opening March 29, 2007.
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