Exposition

Blocking as Emergence: Painting at the Threshold Between Representation and Abstraction (2025)

Richard Mills

About this exposition

This exposition investigates how visual meaning emerges at the threshold between abstraction and representation through a painting process based on “blocking”—the placement of large tonal regions before any detailed painting occurs. Each painting begins with coarse structural square blocks that are then repeatedly fractured or clarified. Rather than illustrating a subject, the method becomes a perceptual experiment: recognition arises as the work shifts between coherence and ambiguity. Alongside the paintings, a set of computationally blocked images and time-based sequences are produced using Colab. These digital transformations mirror the studio process by moving between coarse simplification and increasing visual differentiation. Taken together, the analogue and digital works offer a parallel investigation of how minimal structure can trigger figural recognition, and how ambiguity can be deliberately sustained. The exposition positions “blocking” as both a practical method and a conceptual tool for understanding tipping points between seeing and not-seeing in contemporary painting.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsblocking, perception, representation, abstraction, tipping oint, painting
date06/12/2025
published26/12/2025
last modified26/12/2025
statuspublished
copyrightGraham Mills
licenseCC BY-NC-ND
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/4046646/4046647
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/rc.4046646
published inResearch Catalogue
external linkhttps://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0009-0004-0158-0673


Copyrights


Comments are only available for registered users.