New Art This Week: Cells
all images are clickable for enlargeable pics
Cells 3
encaustic on panel
10 x 10 inches
I finished this yesterday and photographed it this morning. It’s the newest painting in a series I call “Cells”. The series description from my website:
“One basic shape, repeated as many times as fits on a single support, is allowed to vary in size, color and shape. The changes in each cell both force changes in and accomodate for changes in surrounding cells. The overall pattern is enriched by the variation. This is interesting to me both as a vehicle for formal concerns and as a metaphor.“
The text is a fairly accurate description of how this series began. The original cell work, though much larger at about 6 feet tall by 3 feet wide by 5 inches deep, was a simpler composition. I built and attached to a canvas what were basically loose diamond shapes made from sheets of acrylic medium. The result was an overall grid like pattern.
Pink Cells
61 x 36 x 5 inches
acrylic and oil on canvas
As the series has progressed, I’ve introduced more varied elements into the compositions. These elements force the grid into a less regular form and allow me to design new compositions while still exploring the repeating cell forms. Below are two more examples.
 encaustic on panel 10 x 10 inches |
 encaustic on panel 10 x 8.5 inches |
-Steph Gerolimatos
January 24, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Cells never seemed particularly sensual… till I see them here…LOL
Beautifully executed!
January 25, 2009 at 9:24 am
These are my favorites of your work so far, Ssttephg. Biologically “organized”, scientifically beautiful. Like interesting, colorful photographs from National Geographic.
January 25, 2009 at 9:55 am
thank you AnnO!
well thank you Terry. for some reason i didn’t expect you to like these. um, what if i said i was looking for a live model?
January 25, 2009 at 2:34 pm
These are lovely. They have something of the essence of Eva Hesse to them. And David Kronenberg.
January 25, 2009 at 9:31 pm
5/5.
January 26, 2009 at 1:45 am
Cells 3 reminds me a bit of petroglyphs found out here. Have to wonder what the ancient celts were depicting at Newgrange in their diamond patterns. Love your stuff, Steph!
January 26, 2009 at 11:15 am
thanks JD, i do love me some Eva Hesse! now i want to watch naked lunch again. maybe i’ll embark on cronenberg binge a la netflix.
much appreciated, TB and Andrew. yeah, wouldn’t it be great to peek back in time and find out what that’s all about? seems like there are patterns and images that appear over and over in art and design. maybe they reappear in our consciousness because they can be found so often and in so many different forms in nature.
January 26, 2009 at 2:00 pm
If you’re checking out cronenberg, I basically recommend everything. Dead Zone is a particular favorite for me because it is slightly prohetic of our previous president, and anything with Chrstopher Walken as a psychic is a good time. His recent films also hold up well. I watched “A History of Violence” with Ms. Tiller over chat once.
January 26, 2009 at 11:35 am
You know those hollow-core doors in late-model houses? Diamond patterns of cardboard spacing material on the inside. I’m not kidding!
How do I know this? Uh…one of my step-daughter’s favorite hobbies was slamming doors…until it lost all of it’s violently percussive effect. That episode left me with visions of a solid rubber door and hilarity ensuing. At least until the next passive-aggressive onslaught.
January 27, 2009 at 11:29 pm
It’s like science class except cooler!
January 28, 2009 at 12:10 pm
i think i did know that about the doors, Andrew. but only because there’s a board product a friend told me about that’s super light and super sturdy. it’s built with the same sort of interior honeycomb-like structure and when describing it to me he made the comparison to hollow core doors. he was using it to fabricate enormous artwork that needed to be easily transportable. i never got around to trying it out because it was expensive and i’m cheap…. i mean thrifty.
JD, anything with Christopher Walken as an anything in it is a-ok by me. did you see Scotland, PA? “y’know i used to be a dancer.” heading over to netflix to add Dead Zone, A History of Violence and whatever Cronenberg they have now. watching movies over chat, that’s an ingenious way to transcend space.
cooler than science class, eh? high praise indeed! thank you Daniel!
January 28, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Conceptually these works speak to me more than any simple formal aesthetic, yet the analogies are mixed and randomly connected to everything from microscopic bio-morphic images to memories of old science fiction movies and dark dreams of childhood. They leave me pleasantly apprehensive. Good going, Gerolimatos.
February 4, 2009 at 9:43 am
i found this article on the BBC and it reminded me of your cells
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7846531.stm
February 4, 2009 at 12:30 pm
wow! one cell! that was fascinating. thanks for the link.
it’ll be amazing when they figure it out. the bit about how it’ll lead to new drugs struck me as kinda funny. i was expecting it to lead into how they’d be able to work on figuring out why the function failed in some people and how to avoid the failure or repair the function when it failed. but drugs are good, too.
May 12, 2010 at 4:30 am
The layout for your website is a bit off in Chrome. All The Same I like your site. I may have to install a “normal” browser just to enjoy it.