Continuum: New Works on Paper by Grace DeGennaro

About

In her current painting series Continuum, artist Grace DeGennaro strives to convey to the viewer a sense of the unseen structures that supports the universe. Each of the paintings on paper featured in her show at Schema Projects, begins from a central axis that divides the support into equal “golden” sections. Starting at the center of a schematic framework, DeGennaro applies small beads of pigment in a process that combines colors in recurring accretions. The resulting lattice of color on a contrasting ground imparts a gnomonic expansion, much like the symmetric growth of a tree, a shaft of wheat, or the shell of a nautilus.  Each mark begets and relates to another mark, creating a visible record of time as the surface evolves and the past is seen with the present.  While DeGennaro builds on the language of geometric abstraction, her innovation is to create works of a potent energy force, at turns vibrational or calming. We feel a rapture that is like star gazing which holds us within its thrall and the organized progression from work to work unfolds in an orderly fashion filling us with visual delight.

These soft and powerful works have been influenced by Sanskrit algorithms which define Fibonacci sequences and the Golden Mean. Her work extends from a study of ancient uses of pattern, symmetry and iconic symbolism in traditional forms such as Tantric drawings, Navajo weavings, and Byzantine mosaics, as well as modern interpretations of these vocabularies, including geometric abstraction, Carl Jung’s collective unconscious, Josef Albers’ color theory and Robert Lawlor’s sacred geometry.