“Absolute: Frequency” — A Painting Of Life’s Ups & Downs
by Daric Gill
My latest painting, Absolute: Frequency combines layer upon layer of opposing forces into one conversation. It depicts the oscillations in our lives: fortunate blessings and frustrating blights, life and death, ups ands downs, and seasonal changes. I’m exploring the relationships between how we feel change measured from the position of maximum equilibrium. Each element of this work slides between an amplitude of opposites.
This is a special piece that is packed full of meaning and opportunity. Next year, it will find its way to another country as part of an international exhibition! Read on below for a visual breakdown, process video, image gallery, and what travel adventures are in store.
[Process Video & Image Gallery Below Article]
Let’s start from the background and work our way forward. Three panels of maple become one piece; a tight triptych. Four transparent layers of blue, each slightly more chromatic and opaque than the last, stack horizontally behind a vertical white rectangle. The geometric blue tones have slightly wavy top edges. Three of these geometrical tones dip down sharply in the middle in right angles, as if there is a separation or lull. The fourth (and faintest) continues as a full shape with no dip.
Two berried Pyracantha (aka Firethorn) branches poke out from behind the white rectangle at opposing angles. The left branch holds its combination of living and dying berries upward, breaking free from the layered geometry while the other points its berries downward into the blue. As its name suggests, the Firethorn is a thorny evergreen bush that grows lush red berries during the winter months.
Above them, a vertical rectangle fades from a solid white to a grungy and transparent light-blue. Resting quietly atop everything is a withered and wave-stricken root. In its life, it waved back and forth from left to right, ultimately choosing to grow in one main direction. It is dead now.
Green and grey colored lichen feed off the nutrient-rich root and a perfectly symbiotic relationship is formed. The moisture-collecting fungus gleans food from the root and provides water to the algae. In turn, the algae creates food from the sun and replenishes the fungus. They are living.
True to its name, each element in Absolute: Frequency takes inspiration from a type of periodic wave form. Sine waves, square waves, and a sawtooth wave can be found as presented through natural materials. Similarly, the work plays with frequencies in space from left to right as well as foreground to background.
This piece is currently slated to go to Mantanzas, Cuba in 2019 in conjunction with a major art fair in the spring. It’s one of my more exhilarating opportunities and I’m waiting for some last minute loose ends to be tied up before releasing the amazing news. Let’s just say I’ll be returning to Havana again in April. Stay tuned for a further article regarding those exciting details!
Daric Gill Studios 