“Faith & Certainty – (The Shroud)” by Richard Wright
Title:
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
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Richard Wright
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- London Guildhall University
- Soft Future Productions
Symposium:
Artist Statement:
Richard Wright’s early work as a painter was concerned with identifying different approaches to creating visual art and exploring relationships between them in order to escape the notion of an egocentric ‘style· and expose a deeper content level. At first Richard dealt with this mainly as an aesthetic issue. As he went on to experiment with conscious and unconsciously controlled creative processes he began to feel dissatisfied with conventional methods of producing art, and started to use mathematically based systems to provide independent sources of imagery and external constraints on artistic decisions.
Due to the large number of calculations and the precision required for this kind of work Richard turned to computers as the most appropriate medium to work with. His first opportunity to use computer equipment was at Denver Unviversity and he began to exhibit at local galleries the intricate patterns that resulted. After returning to England for the final year of his degree Richard continued his work at the IBM Scientific Centre in Winchester. At this time Richard believed that mathematics could be used artistically as a means of perception, specifically of natural phenomena, by simulating processes and visualising their outcome, and he felt that computer graphics could provide a way to directly experience and appreciate new mathematical ideas about the world.
In order to more fully explore the world of forms he was creating, Richard expanded his systems to allow for three dimensional interpretations and also for the use of computer animation to show patterns of growth and change. This developed into an interest in representation, and through the composition of soundtracks for videos to ideas of synthesising light and sound. Much of 1987 was spent as Artist in Residence at Middlesex Polytechnic writing software to study more and more complex lighting effects and surface properties, becoming intrigued by the realistic yet artificial quality of 3-D rendered imagery, and its power to intimidate perception.
Richard’s work had by now diversified and shifted away from the more formal character of systems art and towards wider issues of their cultural and epistemological status. The aesthetic and perceptual properties of mathematical objects and computer generated graphics are still important, as well as the relationship of visual knowledge with other forms of knowledge. He is now also concerned with ideas arising from the value we assign to mathematics and logic, its role as a description of the world and as an expression of certainty about it, and the conflict between the rational and irrational aspects of the self.
