The Metaphysics of Space: Painting a Body of Light

Abstract

This investigation explores an invitation to the metaphysical—to the spiritual—through the visual language of painting. As an abstract painter and a person of faith, abstraction affords me a contemporary, non-prescriptive language for my thesis; above all it offers me the potential to explore space and light as both subject and medium in this project.

This research builds on the tradition of Western religious painting—where three-dimensional space is interpreted into two-dimensional space for the purposes of inspiring the viewer to imagine and engage with the metaphysical. My encounters with historic sacred paintings and with the liturgical cycle whilst on monastic retreat, directed my investigations to two approaches towards luminosity in paint: materialising light through the materials used and painting the changing natural light experienced. This is a reflection of two identified intentions underpinning historic sacred works of art: the devotional purpose and the narrative didactic objective. These experiences of light and space in the company of religious paintings and in sacred environments gave me the conceptual and methodological framework of affect with which to structure my enquiry.

My intention is to create a body of paintings that offers new opportunities of experiencing the metaphysical—based on historic imaginings of the metaphysical—by stimulating the viewer’s intuitive sense of interior and exterior space experienced through the body. This research takes the form of a series of painted investigations into the nature of light and space, in which I use both interactive materials and colour interactions as facilitative devices for exploring the spiritual potential of the two-dimensional image.