THE AESTHETIC CONTINUUM

by Wess Dahlberg, 2005

I make a bold claim. I call these paintings the "Aesthetic Continuum" because they strike an aesthetic chord in the viewer's psyche. In doing so, they reveal to us some of the inner-workings of human consciousness. For ease of discussion, I make this bold claim in 3 steps.

1. Although these paintings appear to be an entertaining "artist fantasy," they actually come into existence through the enactment of some of the natural laws that also govern our physical world.

  a. I obtain a flat sheet of acrylic plastic and cut a free form shape. Employing the thermo-plasticity of Plexiglas, I use heat to undulate the acrylic sheet. I don't "mold" the plastic. Rather, I heat the plastic, one area at a time; this softens that specific area of plastic and I let the weight of the softened plastic cause a sag, the undulation. Precisely how the material shifts from two to three dimensions remains enigmatic and eludes my control: As I heat a small area to create a single undulation, the entire piece of Plexiglas shifts to accommodate this new feature.

  b. After much fine tuning of the topography, I am ready to paint. I place the piece in a shallow wooden box; this enables me to place a pair of carefully spaced, wood 1x4's (the slot) slightly above the undulating surface. With an airbrush, I shoot the paint through the slot and it lands on the undulating Plexiglas in the bands of color. The paint texture appears soft or hard, out-of-focus or in-focus, because the varying distance the sloping surface lies beneath the slot determines the degree of eclipse (a.k.a. the amount of the soft "overspray"). During the painting, I remain mindful that the paint shoots out of the airbrush like light out of a flashlight, or in the reverse direction of how the light reflected from the painting will enter the viewer's eye.

  c. I shoot pure color (red, blue, yellow, orange, green, purple and white, but no black) out of the airbrush. I arrange the colors in two distinct ways: 1) the transparent layering of color as in the stained-glass or glazing effect of oil painting, and 2) the juxtaposition of dots of various colors as in pointillism or a video monitor, which is why the paintings appear in greater focus with greater viewing distances. I never pre-mix the color. Rather, I present pure color on the painting, and the viewer mixes the color in his mind.

  2. These paintings offer the viewer an abundance of visual phenomenon: soft and hard textures, full color spectrum, straight lines and curves, physical depth and apparent spatial depth. The painting asks the viewer to heighten his scope of vision, and if the viewer responds, he enters into a state of keen awareness of his present moment with the painting, his mind no longer distracted by daydreams about the future nor reveries of the past, including art historical comparisons.

  3. This keen awareness of the present moment is the becoming sensitive to how our consciousness interacts with the painting. Viewers have commented on unusual experiences: Some see the paintings expand and contract like a breath, others see colors that appear self-illuminated, others see the verticals oscillate like a flame, and others, yet, see the painting's shadow mysteriously crawl up and down the wall. The paintings appear in movement because as we look at the painting and try to re-cognize it, our conscious mind continually reassesses the true nature of the painting. And as our mind is alive and ever changing, so too is the image of the painting that the mind is re-creating. The Aesthetic Continuum invites us to watch our consciousness.

Some people have tried to discount this special occurrence as an optical illusion, perhaps because they are uncomfortable with this new intimacy. Yet, unlike the nervous and agitating illusions of Op Art, we feel relaxed, soothed and empowered by these paintings because they celebrate our capacity to cognize the here-now. In fact, some viewer's eyes become as large as discs. As stated in Point 1, these paintings come into existence through the enactment of some of the physical laws that also govern our physical world. Granted, it's a special reality, but reality just the same.