Ron Left

‘The Latin word fenestra refers to a window, but also more widely to an opening, a niche or portal. Penetrating the solidity of a wall, the window is a space of passing through, of shifting images, reflections and shadow. Like the retina it is a screen on which images coalesce.

The paintings in the series do not represent actual windows and the Fenestra title serves not as a description but as an entry into the works through analogy. The paintings are more concerned with liquid moving states than tangible, settled ones. The works generate an array of different types of movement and transformation. There are multiple energies in the works; the painterly flows and runs, the vertical spine-like movement beyond the frame, hints of grids migrating in all directions.

Multiple points of focus, often on semi-gridded planes, deny the ability to focus on any one centre, forcing the eye to wander across and beyond the surface. In an analogous dynamic to the surface screen of a window, invisible tensions appear to disturb and transform the painting plane.

The invisible stirs the surface of the visible’.

– Ron Left 2021