Lucio Fontana

Within my explorations in the style of Lucas Simoes, I came across the idea of cutting into the piece to create negative space. I wanted to find inspiration to further develop this idea and make visible ways of executing it. Lucio Fontana was born on 19 February 1899, Argentina and died on 7 September 1968, Italy. Fontana's 'Spatial Concept, Waiting' is one of many series of work Fontana produced between 1958 and 1968. Fontana's work that consists of cuts in the canvas either once or multiple time, are on the whole recognised as the Tagli cuts. The Tagli cuts were thoroughly calculated yet achieved in a second. This example, similarly the other holes in the canvases, hold the effect of attracting the viewer's eye into the small, yet seemingly powerful space. The puncture breaks out from the surface possessing the gestural force towards the audience in a manner that is threatening. My belief is that this threatening nature attracts us to the hole because we are instinctively attracted to knowing dangers of the world for survival, as well as knowing what is under the surface of everything. 

Fontana declared "I have constructed, not destroyed", I originally did not believe in this point, because I was being single minded and viewed the pieces as portraying actions of violence and destruction until I discovered this interesting point. Which is that these work blur the separation among two and three dimensionalities. Each cut was produced using a sharp blade, and then the canvas was backed on to black gauze. This black backing gave the piece this a void appearance under the surface and through the slit. This slit breaks the layer of two-dimensionality in order to feature the area behind the painting. 

From being inspired by this series of work, I now see my vision as also being a blurred combination of two and three dimensionalities, because I'm unable to see in 3D, however, through years of experience I have adapted myself and the way I view the world to allow me to pick up that the world is 3D, through movement, shadows and other forms. 

The artist was known for respecting the advances of technology and science throughout the 20th century, leading himself to find an interest in investigating and exploring a wide selection of mediums and methods, as shown in this cut series. 

Fontana explored and developed his work through both size and shape of the cuts, as well as altering the colour of the canvases, through the application of bright colours, such as red and blue. I find this interesting that the artist also found an interest in these two colours, because I've been using them throughout my work to link back to the traditional colours used in 3D glasses and images.