Debra Dawes @ GBK

Although op art can be an intriguing cognitive experience, in general it fails to capture my imaginative and emotional engagement. However, after being invited into the artist residency space within the GBK Gallery in Waterloo, where Debra Dawes has been pottering away in her spare time at large scale geometric abstractionist works, I was struck by the simplistic, repetitive, process that such works allow the artist to engage in.

Being invited to play the voyeuristic witness to the humble tactile meditations of an individual allowed me to empathically engage with these works in a way that I would not have typically conceived.

'As an exercise to get herself into the right head space for working,' the curator explained, 'Dawes takes a tube of white paint to white canvas and squeezes a vertical line of paint in time with the length of her breath. Each new breath is a new line and in this way, the pattern created becomes a record of her body's own subtle rhythms.'

Similarly, another of Dawes colour based works recorded the rhythm of her art practice. For a number of months, Dawes created a series of canvases adding a new segment of colour according its size to the amount of time spent in the studio and its colour to her intuitive response to the work at the time. The resulting work became a visual record of her own lifestyle rhythms.

The main work which Dawes has been working on in this space is, as mentioned before, a large scale geometric abstractionist piece, which works on the principles of colour theory to create the illusion of depth to the canvas. It was interesting to witness the painstaking attention to detail which goes on for a work like this, each tiny section being masking taped off before painted to ensure the kind of clarity in line and form that is necessary for the overall success of Dawes intention.

Another aspect which engaged my curiosities was Dawes invitation to private poetry readings during her art making hours at GBK. In a statement titled Poetry in the Open Studio which the curator promptly dug up for me when I quizzed him a little further about Dawes intention here, she explains "I am interested...to understand the nature of poetry in relation to the creative process and the visual. I am also curious about the effect on ones cognitive pathways and the effect on one's thinking after a lengthy exposure to poetic structures and content." Although their is currently a vagueness about where this side project might lead, my curiosity was aroused by the hint at 'generation of further work,' something definitely worth keeping ears to the ground on.