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Dorothea Rockburne has been called a distinguished abstract painter whose work is cerebral,
rational and schematic, yet deeply sensual — while creating an illusion of suspended radiance.
Rockburne claims inspiration from two significant sources. While attending Black Mountain
College in North Carolina, at age 18, she found painting classes to be less interesting than courses about mathematical systems: topology
(which she describes as “a way of thinking about the space in our universe as one continuous surface with gravitational indentations
that we call stars and planets”), set theory, geometry, harmonic intervals, the Golden Section and Fibonacci numbers. Rockburne
found further inspiration baking with her daughter. “Christine and I made this chocolate cake one day. It was a rectangular cake,
and I had bought sugared candy violets and we put them all over it. She was five and wonderful, so every moment I had with her was really
precious. Then she cut a pie-shaped piece from the rectangular cake because that was all she’d ever seen. I looked at it and I was
astounded.”
She says of her work, “The final painting is meant to be experienced visually. I take it
for granted that my depth of soul and visual discernment will be contained in everything I do... there is a kind of magic to geometry and
higher mathematics... My ambition in painting is to perceive and construct a spatial geometry for the 21st century.” She also
insists art is “absolutely political in that it’s a force for the right — for happiness, for humanistic values. It’s
not a commodity.”
Sensuous. Intellectual. Political. But also religious, trying for the “experience I have
had in Catholic Church. The way in which the atmosphere is thick from the stained glass windows creates a tremendous sense of space. ... I
think that paintings are like angels; they go out and plant their messages.”
Take a look at Dorothea Rockburne’s mathematical angels.
Tearful Sisters, 1993-4
Gesso, Lascaux Aquacryl and Caran D'Ache on handmade paper
Summer Solstice, 1991
Watercolor and watercolor stick on paper
Zero to One
Two panels, Lascaux Aquacryl and Caran D'Ache on gessoed masonite
Euclid's Comet, 1996-7
Lascaux aquacryl on speciallly prepared surface.
Neutron Star, 1998
Lascaux aquacryl on handmade paper
Gravitational Pull #7, 2002
Lascaux Aquacryl and copper on hand-made Dieu Donne paper
The Twins: Castor and Pollux, 2002
Two panels, Lascaux Aquacryl, copper on gesso-prepared linen
Star Structure, 2002
Copper, Caran D'Ache, digital image, Lenox 100pd, mounted on Moulin de Lorroque
Copper, Paper Pulp, and Dieu Donne #2, 2003
Copper foil, paper pulp, Lascaux aquacryl, glue mounted on ragboard
Rising Star, 2003
Caran d'Ache, copper, photo montage on Moulin de Lorroque paper
Elliptical #5, 2004
Oil on copper, coated and sanded
Geometry of Stardust: A Musical Fifth, 2009-10
Lascaux Perlacryl and Aquacryl paint, Golden High Load Titanium White acrylic,
and gold leaf on Strathmore 140 lb cold press watercolor paper
Geometry of Stardust: Secret Relationships, 2009-10
Lascaux Perlacryl and Aquacryl paint,
Golden High Load Titanium White acrylic, and
gold leaf on Strathmore 140 lb cold press watercolor paper
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