Zoë Shulman Studio: The Circuit Topology Series

Huzzah!

"Circuit Topology"

Ink on paper

15" X 22"

2014

"In Planar Camo", "Tri-circuit", "Attractor"

Ink on paper

6" X 7.5" (each)

2014

* * *

"Circuit Topology Poem"

Slabs of square tiles line the jungle floor

I am in planar camo

as I weave between muscular tree roots

bursting from the uneven concrete layers,

up to a kaleidoscope canopy

Knots of interwoven branches obscure the sun,

casting gothic rays down onto my

animal face

Instinct drives me

to an ancient geometric grotto,

located somewhere beyond the deep murmurs

of these uncharted tropics...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rEDIEEE7io&feature=youtube_gdata_player

^ Four Tet, my love.

* * *

I think the crop helped to emphasize the functional elements of the composition. I'm going to continue working on this suite of drawings and will likely be showing these somewhere in the coming months, alongside my Cyberspace paintings. I will also be getting ready to make a new series of paintings from these drawings. I have lots of ideas, but need to narrow it down to make a cohesive presentation of paintings. 

My newest idea deals with the communication between different bodies of networks. So, the next drawing is going to be like "continents" of perspectives that are connected by extended circuits. I want to begin to make the composition less of a closed loop and integrate the challenges of mapping negative space between multiple bodies.* (It may have emergent concave/convex topography, like "Attractor"). I'd like to eventually have a bunch of panel paintings that function this way as an installation. 

*That's the whole challenge - it takes awhile to figure out how to connect everything, but it's all about maintaining loyalty to a system, while at the same time, pushing it to its limits to maximize the surprise.

(^Similar to "Postmodern Tectonics", but with more negative space and irregular polygons.

It's time to break the square!) 

P.S. Frank Stella, the love of my life: http://20thcenturyartmovements.weebly.com/.../537017720.jpg

 20thcenturyartmovements.weebly.com  

Just look at this sweet man! http://i.telegraph.co.uk/.../frank-stella-portr_2006205c.jpg

 i.telegraph.co.uk

^I hope I get to meet him someday. 

(I love his Protractor Series, Exotic Birds and Eccentric Polygon Series.) http://en.museuberardo.pt/.../files/collection/works/554.jpg

 en.museuberardo.pt

The Black Paintings are also really great - but I like his less minimal work. I like it when

Stella lets loose and gets sculptural with painted surface. 

I'm also thinking about starting with the drawn composition and responding to it sculpturally (vs. responding with illusion on top of the sculpture). That way, I might be able to foresee and dictate the contradiction of the space with more intention. I was thinking I could take a drawing like this, divide it into tiers of spaces, and then build the levels on the wood panels according to those tiers. 

Of course, I would completely reverse the logical progression of back-mid-fore-ground spaces that we understand in the illusion. The space would be compressed and contradicted by reversing the order of spaces in the compositions. 

Also, I have some new mini wood panels. I'd love to cut up these drawings and collage them onto wood panels, while working with the same sculptural ideas. I want to varnish them, too - cover them in clear gesso and put an isolation coat with high gloss varnish on top. These need to be really shiny. Also-also, interference paint and tracing paper would have amazing spatial-distortion effects. I could easily collage the tracing paper over sculpted surface by folding it and gluing it down. *Ok, I will stop verbalizing my artist train of thought, now* 

Layered book board + PVA glue + paper collage + wood panels + clear gesso +varnish = new collage paintings. They will be much easier to construct, and they won't warp on the wood panel! **I've made myself happy** 

I'm also thinking about breaking the square format of the painting and doing something more irregular shaped. Like, maybe, a bunch of skewed squares that fit together and slither across the floor like a rattle snake. Or, maybe I'll have all that occurring within a rectangle format… was also thinking it'd be crazy to bring the Fibonacci sequence back into the grid.