FORMATIONS - JEFF DAVIS
This was part of an ongoing series of articles that released was digitally in July 2022. They were first published in the print edition of the Bright Moments Quarterly that was distributed in London.
As a senior at Lawrence University, I had the opportunity to spend a semester in London. I was adding a Studio Art major to my Math major and preparing conceptually for my thesis exhibition. The city, the museums, the intellectual independence of living abroad, and my future wife, all deeply influenced my nascent art practice. It was a formative time.
During this period, my work was becoming increasingly reductive, distilling my surroundings into their most basic elements: line, form, and color as the building blocks for composition. For my return to London this summer, I de- cided to revisit those first principles that shaped my early thinking. While the experiments with formal reduction in my early work were driven by a desire to discover structure in my surroundings, the use of algorithmic processes in my current practice allows for a random determination of compositional el- ements within a structured framework. Through computation and iteration, ‘Formations’ seeks to reveal the structural essence and internal organization of its compositional system. The results are a diverse yet related set of ar- rangements, characterized by strong colors and austere geometric forms.
Also during this time in London, computers were not widely used as an art-making tool and my practice was primarily focused on traditional pro- duction techniques. Along with painting, I worked in printmaking: etching, lithography, relief, and eventually serigraphy. So in addition to the visual references from my early work, I have also decided to make ‘Formations’ my first NFT print project. Collectors will receive a unique, single-edition ar- chival pigment print along with their NFT. The print format opens a rich field of associations with the exploration of geometric abstraction in 20th Century art and demonstrates that the outputs of a code-based system can be displayed through a variety of media. Saturated with personal memories and grounded in a sustained engagement with the formal elements of composi- tion, ‘Formations’ seeks to further extend the trajectory of geometric abstrac- tion through the means of generative art.
- Jeff Davis 