Cane, Cut, Repeat

If you read the in-depth design articles in this latest issue, here is an opportunity to practice your new analytical skills for identifying types of repetition and rhythm. And to see just how much beauty these design concepts can add to a piece.

Look at the piece below. Draws you in immediatly doesn’t it? But why? Seems straight-forward, maybe even rather basic at first glance. However, this is anything but simple and is a sterling example of what makes good art great — it makes you keep looking at it. After a minute or two of surveying this mosaic wall piece — and especially if you have an appreciation for the roles that repetition and rhythm play in art — you’ll really begin to appreciate the complexity of the design choices.

Ponsawan Sila created this piece with mosaic polymer pieces 1cmx1cm — nothing more representative of repetition than a shape repeated over and over but … the visual textures in each shape are all different or rarely repeated, incorporating random (textures) and regular (shape) repetition. She uses progressive rhythm in the color changes that occur in each waving layer as it moves horizontially across. There is also repetition of line in the waves, which consistently create the space for each color palette, creating  soft slow rhythm established in the reserved undulations of those lines.

All on a 6″x12″ tile. That’s pretty impressive.