Richard Mills

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Australia °1940
research interests: tipping point, abstraction, representation, blocking, viewer engagement
affiliation: Mature age Student, University of Western Australia
orcid: 0009-0004-0158-0673
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Richard Mills is a researcher and practitioner at The University of Western Australia. His current work investigates the threshold of figurative recognition through a methodology of "blocking," bridging traditional painting practices with computational analysis. As a researcher, he explores the intersection of perceptual psychology and contemporary image-making, utilizing Google Colab to mirror studio-based tonal fracturing.

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research expositions

  • Blocking as Emergence: Painting at the Threshold Between Representation and Abstraction (2025) author(s): Richard Mills published in: Research Catalogue
    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.
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