James Collins

Untitled

These two large format untitled paintings by James Collins feature the artist’s hallmark technique, which transforms abstraction into an optical illusion that creates dimension, space, and mass. These particular paintings expand on the optical illusion referred to as a moiré pattern. Moiré (or fringe patterns as they are also called) are known in mathematics, physics, and art as a type of interference pattern that can be produced when a partially opaque ruled pattern with transparent gaps is overlaid on another similar pattern. Through a process of accretion and subtraction, Collins layers different colored paints, then employing unconventional tools, scrapes the layers into a desired pattern while still wet. These works feature refined iterations of this process – simple horizontally striated patterns, one in black and the other in red – that transform the flat surfaces into multidimensional spaces replete with edges, corners, and cliffs.