GORDON FEAREY

Artist Statement

A rectangular painting, like a window, seems to ask how far the picture extends beyond the frame. To me, it extends infinitely in all directions.

In my art practice, I engage with infinity by confronting my own finiteness. My line can go only so far. My brushstrokes last only so long before they die. Writing and music, because of their beginning-middle-end structure and sequences of moments, inspire me. I’m also inspired by the writings of Lucretius, who rejects the notion of a center or edge to the cosmos and sees life as a fleeting moment within a boundless continuum of time.

In my Lucretius series, I make a single line that begins and ends at the edge of the canvas. My goal is to integrate line with background – figure with ground – and I’m interested in the metaphysical issues that arise from this challenge. For me, the figure corresponds to the human condition of finiteness, the ground to the infinite time and space in which the figure occurs.