Statement by the Artist

Although art has been a lifelong interest, I began painting seriously in 2001. My work combines a passion for colour and light with a technical knowledge that embraces an array of modern materials only recently available to the artist. My goal is to explore conceptual domains while creating work that has visual complexity and strong aesthetic appeal. At the same time, I am exploring personal process – that intimate dialogue that unfolds when contact is made with the canvas.

A recent insight has brought me to the understanding that as I work on canvas I also work in conceptual realms. The visual images I produce and the conceptual framework out of which they arise are inseparable, evolving in lockstep. Together they form the total expression of my art.

I am currently using materials that exhibit spectral interference properties. These materials provide the artist with elements that are optically active. Forms and spaces change colour and appearance as the observer moves and his angle of view and the angle of illumination change. I call this property of changing colour with movement, kinechromaticism.

The resulting images are intrinsically unphotographable. No single image or set of images can capture all the nuances available to a viewer free to move and observe the work from different perspectives. (example) This makes the execution of the work a challenge, as its composition is a dynamic variable. It also makes the creation of a single image for exhibition submissions problematic.

I have come to understand that with the exception of some colour field work, colour requires a form through which to express. One cannot paint a "red". One can only paint a red something. An approach I have adopted in much of my work is to use a basic geometric form or forms, freeing me to explore colour and the textural effects that I use to develop its luminous complexity. Beyond form. I think of spaces, particularly colour spaces. This has provide another avenue of exploration.

As for influences, the American Color field painters, Rothko, Frankenthaler and Olitski are artists whose work I admire. A recent period of reflection brought to mind a teenage attraction to the work of Lyonel Feininger. There is an uncanny resonance between his style of prismatic abstraction and the style that underlies much of my work.

I would like to acknowledge the huge influence my wife Mary Nunn has had on my development. A superb colourist herself and a consummate artist in every sense, she continues to be the person I turn to for critical review and discussion.

Ian Nunn, 2007