Returning C

Colour relations as we experience and know them in the light of our surroundings are the generative resource for all my experiments with chromatic density and spatial rhythm in abstract painting.

Glass pigments in Returning G, were progressively kiln-fired on clear glass panels for varieties of surface absorption and reflection, with selective sandblasting, so that light becomes a binding compositional element.

I had no idea that experimenting with painting on glass would lead to a rethink and return to the origins of my work with colour imagery. I am acknowledging that sometimes great distances exist between ‘seeing’ and ‘doing’, the encircling of which leads to renewal.

Standing on a clifftop above deep water, with questions around meaning in glasswork on my mind, I felt compelled to make the following notes:

‘There is a way of looking with a broad gaze that might glimpse meetings in this perpetual flow. A ‘seeing’ with steady nerve and grounded, I am with these patterns in motion. It goes without saying that ‘seeing’ is a participatory event …

I have realised again, why colour is so important for my work. Colours flavour and illumine open space, calling attention to both distance and nearness. As an alternative descriptor to language, colours signal disturbances too: lines, cracks, waves and bubbles form traces. Like a wind that riffles or cuts, these agitations have repetition. Repetition implies an oscillating force; a circulatory turn and return.’

Liz Coats, 2022