COURTING CHAOS

These paintings and multiple-exposure photographs address chaos and complexity theories, specifically the fragile equilibrium existing between order and disorder which shapes and guides our lives as part of the natural world.

Chaos appears everywhere in nature. The most minute disruption of a single component within a system will affect its evolution, rendering that system and its complex networks unpredictable. Correspondingly, one gesture, mark, a passage of color, a shape, or line can alter the architecture and structure of a painting—and when multiple-exposure images are captured and layered within a camera, they record uniquely shifting moments of light, space, and time with completely random results.

My practice is intuitive, intentionally fluid, innately unpredictable, and consistently courts chaos. Infinite choices within the active elements of a picture create chain reactions which continue to transform endlessly until some form of resolution or integrity is achieved. Identically, strategic options persist in our lives as a result of designed or random circumstances. One decision, one action, or statement, a longing, desire, turn, change of mind, blink, or glance can transform what remains of our time, our relationships, or how we maneuver through and view the world.

There is a precarious balance at work in life and in making art, where systems are chaotic enough to disclose invention through their disorder, yet maintain sufficient structure not to splinter, nor lose identity. When I work, I am courting this chaos— chasing with intention, knowing what I am after, but not knowing what I will find. I delve deeply into the personal in order to find the universal—and there is always the potential to push the image too far into an abyss. Without taking that risk, there is no way to discover the life and breath in a painting or photograph—which then breaths life back into me.

—Lawrence Fodor 2024-25