Reflections in Code: Geometry, Nature, and the Spaces Between (Part I)
Pen and ink contemporary fine art by Doug Ashby
It’s amazing what can catch your eye if your time is spent looking up. I enjoy long walks. There is no better time to think and, at the same time, observe the happenings within the natural and human integrated world. The day this artwork became inspired was a slightly warmer than normal early February day. I was walking along some local trails, enjoying the sun as it cascaded through the mostly barren tree branches, when I came across some very stubborn leaves that were still clinging to their branches despite having long ago given their water, and life, to the rhythms and cycles of life. At first it was the undulating rhythms, deep within the folds along the once thriving veins, that caught my attention. I always find myself attracted to such things and I stopped to have a closer look. What struck me in that moment was the realization that these organic forms in many ways are what we, as humans, strive for in creating balance and harmony within our own creations. Yet there always lies a tension between the organic and geometric that seems to always exist. Despite our best attempts to shape the world in reflection, or often contrast, there is a hidden order in nature that is beautifully beguiling.
This essay is the first in a two part series where I attempt to explore the tensions between human creation, which attempts to honor and reflect our natural world, and the pure organic wonders all around us. This is something I have tried before and, like the patterns that develop naturally, in tension, seems to beguile me. I am exceptionally curious about how we humans both take inspiration from nature, yet within that create and build things that try and impose an order upon something that we may never fully understand. Within that it feels, for me at least, that a distortion develops. Are we attempting to imitate nature? Show our reverence towards it? Or are we simply trying, as we often do, to place a recognizable pattern onto something for our own comfort?
In the artwork above I set out to capture the essence, to the best of my human ability, of the leaf on that tree many Februarys ago. I did not want to render as to capture it in a stylistically real way, but to allow the structure to express itself a bit more abstractly. I wanted to capture the natural rhythms of the creases and folds and then directly contrast that with the familiar, yet all to human geometries that exist all around us. My intention was to introduce a subtle contrast, an incongruous element, where tension exists on the borders of what is acceptable and comfortable to our sensibilities. Of course there is the slight element in the lower right corner that lays starkly bare the limitations of this. It’s within those limitations that our ability to respond to nature's irregularities, its uncertainties, that we find our boundaries and that which we have to work within.
Geometry, and its functionality for bringing a sense of order, can be adapted as design tools for us to grapple with, and try to hold the chaos of the natural world still. One of my earliest moments of discovery for this was when I was gifted a book of Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural drawings. I was in my twenties at the time and was just about to finish up my bachelors degree. I was a fine arts major. At the time all that I had encountered of Wright's work existed within the limited scope of my art history studies, never did I take architectural history classes, and having visited the Guggenheim in New York. Like so many before Wright sought to offer that stillness within the chaos and do it in a way that was beautiful and beneficial.
When Da Vinci first drew the Vitruvian man he was attempting to place human kind within the realm of nature as it is understood, and manipulated by human kind. Mondrian chased after something profoundly spiritual in his work by seeking to reduce, abstractly, a path towards enlightenment. This is a pursuit many artists, myself included, grapple with. I often do not take the time to stop and consider, even imagine deeply, the conversation I might be having with my viewers, through my work. Perhaps I should. The truth is once it is put out there I feel the conversation is the viewers to create. My goal is simply to create an artwork that invites the tension necessary for that deeper conversation. In this, and the next work, I attempt to do that through reconciling, revealing, the fault lines between nature and humankind.
A question that is often pondered is: is there an underlying code of sorts that governs the universe? This perhaps is more relevant in a world where code, particularly of the binary sort, dominates so much of our lives. When I first added the pure geometric shapes that you see within this artwork the intention was to suggest abstractly how much binary defines our lives. There is a romanticism in the reductive that we gravitate towards. After all, if nearly everything we encountered came down to a fifty/fifty probability things would feel and seem a lot simpler. That is simply not how life works though, despite our communication systems being built on energy passing through a gate that is either open or closed. The leaf, as a representation of life, could be seen in binary terms. It’s true that at the point of conception a dense sequence was switched on but that also came under the very uncertain nature of the environment it lived and died within. A sudden cold snap early in this leaf’s life could have led to the artwork you see here never being created. It is our nature to want to reduce our structures of knowledge down towards simple truths, the reality is that simply is not the case. What truth is, more often than not, is simply a probabilistic outcome. One where just a little nudging from unforeseen forces could lead to a vastly different reality.
A viewer once commented that it was my use of negative space that most intrigued her. The truth behind that statement is I rarely consider negative space when creating my work. I know it is there and important to what I am striving to create, still it is just something that emerges naturally from my process. I often counsel my students to leave no space on their paper blank as emptiness is often just that. However within that empty space is often where the magic lies. It is within the moments of in-between, the empty, that often the most amazingly beautiful things are seen and or created. Allowing oneself to understand that keeping a sacred distance at times is truly when inspiration hits. When my students are stuck and complaining about not having ideas or not being creative, I send them on a walk. They are often confused and ask why. I tell them to simply empty their minds, but keep their eyes up. They look confused as I shuffle them out the door. More often than not they return ready to get to work, idea birthed. It's within those spaces, the tension between full and empty, the organic and geometric, that as an artist I strive to exist in and represent.
As mentioned earlier this essay is the first of two that explore the relationship between the organic and the geometric, in terms of how we relate to the natural world we live within. In the next piece I add in an element for the first time that goes a little deeper into exploring this relationship, in terms of how control plays an important part in making sense of the empty, the uncertain. I feel that what next week's artwork gets to the heart of is that what we perceive to be is always framed and filtered, and that gets to the root of our bias which both serves and hinders.
Our world, the tiny speck within our vast universe that we, in the here and now, exist within, is an immensely complicated, delicate, and abstract place. It is a microcosm of tension and beauty that pushes and pulls all within it, even something seemingly as insignificant as a dried up leaf clinging to its branch in the heart of winter. Within that dried leaf though we can witness the ever present patterns that define our existence. Distilling them down to the undulating roots of abstraction is where we see emerge those patterns that we seek to place upon, within, our environment to gain a sense of certainty that truly doesn’t exist. Yet there is something remarkable in that process. How we move from here in terms of negotiating these somewhat opposing ideals, structure and freedom, growth and balance, is what possibly will define what lies ahead for our children. Toward that I submit this humble artwork.
The piece you see here is available for purchase. It is 5” x 7”. The price for the original art is $190. If you are interested, reach out to me through my contact page.
As always I hope you enjoyed the art and reflection. Please leave a comment with your thoughts and I promise I will respond. I would very much enjoy hearing from you and seeing where it will take my art.
Thanks,
Doug
