Art of Edmund Wood

My art technique uses the Penter from Pentegraph, performed hundreds and thousands of times, repeating it randomly across the paper, creating a carpet of laid down wax of interwoven colours. From this I carve into it and reveal by extraction the parts which are drawn to my attention by my subconscious influences. This art is called Penteglyph.

The wax is built up layer over layer, the crossing of paths creating bumps which accrue further crossings, the randomness following an unpredictable course which results in an organic texture which is then carved away to reveal the patterns my mind sees within. The technique is an ordered method producing a completely random effect. Within that randomness my subconscious extracts patterns of which I reveal only part.

It is a subtractive method usually only found in sculpture, not an additive method more normal for this medium. In fact it is more akin to sculpture than drawing, except the result is actually visible before I reveal it - and therefore almost an editing process as half of the work is involved in laying down the wax first. It is both uncovered and discovered; just like Pentegraph itself.

It is because my art is not pre-meditated, and that it is natural and uninfluenced by society, that the root of nature is accessible from it, because the patterns within it are created subconsciously and I have led a natural life. An expression of nature through me. Each picture is a meditation in its production.

Art allows us to escape the mundane, to separate us from the familiar and allow us into the divine magnificence of being in this beatification.

Within the chaos is an ordered method which builds and decays in a way not dissimilar to the universe itself; but in this the medium is wax. Look deeply and worlds will unfold.

Follow the lines and contours which reveal themselves, snaking their way amorphously and inter-penetratingly through the levels of imagination, creating intestinal configurations and Gothic limbs in their transient revelation.

The mind is a pattern seeking machine and each linking that it does and each continuity that it finds, produces a releasing of dopamine (a reward/desire neurotransmitter), which we ultimately experience as pleasure. It is this identification and recognition of patterns and the effect that that has on the brain, which results in the experience that we call art. Each tide of neuronal connections which constitute the forming of a jigsaw puzzle of associations, is creating a concept which forms part of our definition of art. The concept is a picture resulting from the explosions of neural interconnections, producing cascading waves of electrical and chemical change in the brain, releasing dopamine and giving us a good feeling. Sometimes you have to work at it a bit to get the reward, looking more deeply until the connecting of the dots of information occurs and a pattern is recognized. Invariably there are too many patterns to consciously know why you like something, as all this is happening below the conscious level. But ultimately at the very root of the reason for the word 'art' to exist at all, is the inevitable pattern that the neurological processes take while assimilating the information from the senses, and producing our experience. Any reasoned thoughts are incidental commentary.

Recognizing relationships and the juxtapositioning and continuity which form the patterns which become the art, is evident in many different (if not all) subjects. Music for instance is nothing if it is not the relationship of one sound to another, and when it sounds good it is because we have recognised a pattern within it. Music is art. The rhythm of my art technique is 5/4.

The pictures are non-representational; they are not supposed to look like something else. If you see something else in them (pareidolia), then that is your mind and not my intention. I personally do not see any faces or any other anthropomorphism within them, only the shapes as they are, and the undefined adventures which result from them. There are many stories and lines of continuity, and your mind will carve out its analysis of natural beauty which lies within. The image is plastic in your mind, the picture that you see is your creation. It really will be your own mind that extracts the beauty from them; it almost has nothing to do with me. You are the artist now.

Almost all of the pictures are non-designed and aleatoric; I have no preconceived idea of what it will look like before I start, or even as I am doing it. The picture unfolds as I uncover or emphasize certain aspects, each small part contributing to the next and producing the scenery for the discovery of the rest. I am not trying to make something, I am trying to let it be whatever it wants to be. It is a surprise and a joy to me all the way through doing it. Quite often a story will accompany the making of a picture in my mind, and or a song hummed out loud. Like the picture they are not fully defined and somewhat amorphous.

My influences are trees and clouds, astronomy, and the fractal nature of nature. I am uninfluenced by the art of other people.

Let your mind discover the patterns and associations which is its nature to do, and the recognition of nature within the art will shine through. While it may be best to constrict the eyes to clarify the picture while viewing some artists, it may be better to dilate the pupils and diffuse the picture, for mine.  Take your glasses off!

Within the detail and the shapes the journey will lay; I only reveal part of the picture. An infinity of discovery within the convoluted and seething mass of colour, like looking into a fire and watching the ever changing patterns. It is like many pictures being superimposed one upon another. There are many layers producing forms following their respective continuities, all happening in the same space; when you see one, you will lose another. Decoding produces many different answers, and all can be correct. There are many stories and lines of continuity for a mind to carve out, it is up to you to discover them; this is where it is fun and where the rewards are. The works are interactive; you have to discover the beauty; you will see your soul.

Don't be distracted by the shape, it only defines the boundary between where the picture exists and where it doesn't. It is what is inside that boundary and the imaginations that it encourages, that is what it is all about. The shape doesn't mean anything; there is no intention.

But it is all so subjective. How long you look at one of my pictures can completely change your experience. It can take a few minutes of looking into the picture before the magic happens; sometimes with the same picture it is immediate. One day it will be ugly and the next beautiful. Your state of mind will show you different things and so this art can be an emotional barometer.

The beauty is everywhere anyway, we just need to abandon ourselves into it and it will show us its splendour. My pictures provide the landscape to fall into and let the essence of our experience of the universe reveal itself.  You cannot keep this state all the time; that is what art allows us back into. That is why we like art. No two people will see the same; that is what comes from the individual.

Each of my pictures is a representation of a miniature world, represented at different levels: the folding back into itself; the continuity of particulates; the entwining arms of similarity; the emergence of organic corpuscles and amorphous organisms; the ordering of chaos; my tortured soul; my divine revelation.

Of course the Latin word for art is ars, and a lot of what is said about it seems to come out of it. Yes, I am laughing at the over seriousness of it all, but it is also all true.

I am being utterly honest. The art is pure, in that it has no compliance to any rules, it doesn't copy someone else's technique, and there is no contrivance of design or intention of representation. It isn't trying to be something else; it has no pretences. But this is my art, and not necessarily what art is accepted as being in other circles.

At the end of the day I am just doing what I am doing, and any judgement is just a silly game. These are my footprints; these are my self portraits both in the making of them and in the influence from the path my life has followed. They are a presentation of myself, but you will only see yourself in them.