March 6 through 27, 2009
Owen Schuh's work explores the possibilities of mimicking the natural world through a set of visual expressions of mathematical models. Morphogenesis is the process that gives rise to the shape of an organism, which is how Schuh tends to thinks of his paintings. The questions that most interest him revolve around the relationship between language and perception, nature and artifice, and logic and form. Rather than working from nature toward an abstract representation of it, he works toward nature from the abstract concept of "pure" math. The work employs a variety of different geometric and mathematical rules, which, though relatively simple in nature, yield surprising organic complexity. They determine the growth and rate of change by individual "cells" (drips of paint, circles, or geometric shapes, etc.) in relation to each other and their environments. Counter-intuitively, the constraint of the rules frees Schuh to explore new forms and images impossible to achieve through his artistic instinct alone.
In each piece, he attempts to arrive at a unique configuration of formal and physical elements. The properties of the materials, used dramatically, change the final form of the paintings. The color, the viscosity of the paint, and method of application allow for the manifestation of phenomena unique to the interaction between the medium and the logical structure. As opposed to a single fixed model, these works imply the possibility of multiple rational viewpoints of the natural world.
See a time-lapse video of Owen Schuh painting the work "Coral."
