Gwen Fisher

Statement

I painted these pictures using one-dimensional cellular automata on a staggered grid of rectangles. I chose designs with a balance between order and chaos. In this series, I hope to achieve a sense of rhythm without exact repeats. I start each painting by drawing a grid on canvas and choosing a set of colors. I paint the first two rows of pixels to establish my initial state. I choose a set of rules and use my initial state to determine which color to paint each cell in the next row. That row and the previous row determine the colors in the following row, and so on. The left and right sides of the canvas are identified like a cylinder. I add many layers of paint to bring out the depth and interest in the particular design.

Artworks

I named this piece "Kintsugi" after the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold in the cracks.

The particular rule set I used for this piece reminds me of vines with budding flowers. The pattern started to repeat near the top. You can see two copies of part of the pattern, keeping in mind that the design continues over the left and right sides like a cylinder.