Synthesis: A Solo Painting Exhibition by Susanne Kamalieh

Artist Statement

Mixed media drawings: colored pen on watercolor/pastel/acrylic paint.

Making the invisible visible. Bringing attention to our immediate environment, to the empty space around us, to what we don’t normally see.

Parallel and oscillating lines depicting the atmospheric energy, the invisible lines of various waves - sound, electromagnetic, radio waves, seismic waves, ... radiations that normally fill the space but are hidden from the human eye, the rippling effect of water or sand, naturally curved lines in the environment as seen or not seen, which through repetition create a visual harmony that remain unobserved, or unnoticed.

As the waves travel across the page, filling the entire space, they form secondary lines and shapes where they collide, reflect, refract, compress, and inflect indefinitely. The process creates new lines at the points of collision or refraction which in turn form new shapes and configurations that determine the pictorial composition. Each work starts with carefully drawn parallel lines, controlled for accuracy. They in turn produce the secondary network of lines and shapes that are mostly accidental, free-flowing and organic.

Lines are placed on painted surfaces that depict scenes of clouds, skies, sunsets, horizon, the sea, or abstracted colored surfaces, as a medium for the waves to travel through. Added second and third layer of lines, or cutting the page to produce lines, create additional visual complexity, more depth and energy in the compositional space, as well as provide a translucent quality to the drawing and capture the ethereal nature of the subject matter.