Continuing through November 14, 2015
New Orleans-based Robert Lansden has created several bodies of work that meticulously examine the use of line and color. “Metamorphosis" includes eleven works on paper executed in ink, gouache or watercolor. Lansden is equally adept in each, the mesmerizing quality remaining consistent from image to image. He has perfected a method of rendering complex and layered shapes and forms that resemble cell structures, nets, webs or woven fabrics. These images induce a contemplative, still and quiet meditative experience that one comes away convinced resemble the artist's experience in making them.
In most of the pieces Lansden starts in the center and works his way outward in expansive and multiplied layers and pathways. These resemble computer-generated patterns bound to mathematical formulas, but they are completely created by Lansden’s internal algorithm as a set of rules and boundaries, with no preconceived result in sight. This allows him to engage in an intuitive process harboring the element of chance and surprise. It is a freedom that produces some wondrous revelations of form. In "Let it all Go By #2" a complex bow and ribbon shape extrudes from the center and flows into the surrounding surface in a violet/red shade. A loose netlike, asymmetrical grid is juxtaposed with dense portions that establish a contrasting tension between two. You could come back to it again and again without a hint of boredom.
