03 February 2011

Ink drawings by Thomas Briggs

The Thomas Briggs's works are nominally ‘drawings’, insofar as when completed they exist as works on paper that potentially could come from the hand of a very patient and obsessive individual. Perceptually the works evoke a gestural sensibility when viewed from a distance. Upon closer inspection that structure evaporates into a fine network of sharply drawn lines. See more;

Thomas has created a lot of different drawing series, I have selected his circular drawing series. In his site you can find more complex, abstract and colored generative art.

This work can be characterized as 'generative' as it is the result of a somewhat directed emulation of physical process. It evolved from an engagement with the tools and concepts of physical simulation and visualization as practiced in the modern visual effects industry. Briggs recognized the potential in these tools for a re-engagement with some of the formal and expressive issues of painting over the last sixty years.

Briggs uses a mathematical description of a very small and self-contained linear gestural element. This base unit of action can be iterated by the thousands, each line unique in its path, yet part of a larger structure that becomes apparent as the lines accumulate. In doing so I hope to walk a line between familiar associations of nature and a riveting sense of the uncanny.