twenty20
Mathew Clarke
Oil on board, 12cm × 20cm
Can we manipulate a randomness yet keep it spontaneous?
Inspired by Gerhard Richter’s ‘4900 colours’ I attempted to disprove the ideology of randomness within probability and art. Using 20 different colours sourced from the 3 primary paints, I developed 20 grid-like paintings that held each colour in a different place. The format of the grid holds 5 columns and 4 rows of 2cmx2cm squares, presenting a colour array in a ‘random form’. The trick to this though, is that none of the rectangles are random at all, each block colour is strategically placed so that it does not repeat in the same position in any other rectangle. There are 190 different possibilities of how I could have arranged these tiles, but the 20 that I decided upon showed a significantly special pattern. Taking the top left rectangle for example, in the top left corner is ‘colour 1’ this colour follows the position in the rectangle exactly as the rectangle is positioned in the gallery space, so for the top right rectangle, ‘colour 1’ is sitting in the top right position. The arrangement appears random, yet there cannot be spontaneity when there is a factor that has been manipulated.