Geoffrey Woodgate

My work is inspired by both Western and Eastern spiritual traditions. I feel that abstract painting is a particularly suitable medium to portray psychological and spiritual space, and to visualise transformation and transcendence. Given abstraction’s broad scope, I decided it was necessary to set myself constraints to work within – specifically, my painted compositions would comprise irregular, coloured shapes delineated by lines and hard edges, inspired by the tradition of stained-glass windows in medieval cathedrals. By way of contrast, I took a more gestural approach with screen printing, seeking to draw inspiration from East Asian calligraphic traditions, with Zen sensibilities and ways of seeing. In this body of work, with its varying approaches to colour, line and rhythm, I attempt to invoke an optical and sensory experience specific to painting encouraging a broader contemplation on the nature of seeing and being in this world.