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Naïve Science
Infinite Surfaces Energy Patterns Magic Squares
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From 26th March - 26th April 2003 Studio Caparrelli will be showing a spectacular exhibition of works by English Artist Graham Day. Viewers will be intrigued by this new series of over 30 beautifully painted works which show geometric patterns, complex mathematical sequences, and objects reminiscent of old religious artifacts. Day uses a unusual range of media and papers, including artist-made stinging nettle paper; Chinese, Indian and European papers from the 17th to 20th Centuries.
Several of the works are mounted on old gaming boards - the kind that fold down the middle, this emphasises Day’s fascination with using forms that relate to themes of rules, games, science, and also helps to explain the feeling in the viewer that they are pieces which have some kind of ‘meaning’ - like diagrams or objects for devotion.
Day himself resists the temptation to attach any specific meaning to his images, saying simply that ‘...shapes have an inherent power and fascination that precedes their significance; squares are square and circles are round....’. This unfettered enjoyment of form as form is part of what inspired the title ‘Naïve Science’.
Day’s interest in the ideas of science and of philosophy is ultimately that of an outsider, further reinforcing the ‘Naïve’ of the title. But this is offset by a fresh and unspoilt joy in the huge range of materials and creative practices of traditional craftspeople, especially from the Near and Far East, and there is a discernible influence on both his working techniques and his results from this interest. He cites as influences all of the anonymous carpet weavers, masons, scribes, mapmakers and others whose unsigned work happily survives.
Day’s works are a fascinating and appealing mixture of both calculated and spontaneous kinds of curiosity, demonstrating the artist’s boundless speculativeness about objects and images, old and new, and from near and far.
‘I spend my whole time looking at and thinking about images. Different things can express the same idea or evoke the same emotion, you never know where the answer lies. Innocent objects can unwittingly express grand themes’
Graham Day
Day’s work can be found in international collections such as MOMA New York, and in the collections of the British Library, The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
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