Statement
for:
La Segunda Iberoamericana Bienal de Lima
I view these installation works as portraits and as
landscapes. These pieces are abstract paintings that exist at once physically,
conceptually and temporally in space. They are compositions of brushstrokes that
play on a wall as well as sculptural works of paper that play with light and
shadow.
I have been working with the Tetrad format for more
than 5 years now. The repeating designs used in this work are drawn from a wide
range of sources and cultures. I select the designs and their placement within
the Tetrads for their emotional power and the sheer beauty of their composition.
With this new body of work, I feel that I am truly
painting beyond the borders of a frame. Each work is comprised of many small
Tetrads, all of them brought together as a collection and held together by a
dominant form, shape and theme. While the individual Tetrads turn in on
themselves, spiraling around their centers, the collection of tetrads, as a
work, expands outward, multiplying past the frame, its variations birthing
variations, out into cosmic infinity.
As a final note, I want the work to be uplifting. I
want it to have a sense of endless possibilities, of hope and of transcendence,
a creative process with no end in sight. I want the viewer of these
installations to experience some of the endless possibilities encoded within
this work.
Darrell Nettles, May 24, 1999, New York City