Michael Kidner

Kidner said that "Optics presents a challenge that was once offered by perspective".[1] He was referring to the examination of visual perception in the science of linear perspective developed by Leon Battista Alberti and other Renaissance artists in the 15th century.[4] Kidner was also interested in the work of Seurat and the Neo Impressionists who had investigated the connection between the retina and the brain regarding colour perception, as seen in their Pointillist paintings.[5] Rothko's Colour Field abstractions led Kidner to see colour as "pure sensation".[6] For example in his Moving Green 1959 the colours seem to float in an atmospheric colour relief in front of the canvas.On gazing at the colour field, the eye moves from the green to the red area and a bright, red spot or after image produced by the retina appears in the field.

Later Kidner's After Image works became hard edged with flat uniform patterns, when he realised that optical activity producing shimmer is decreased by brushy paintwork and varied shapes.

However After Image became too limited for Kidner, he found that he wanted to approach colour in a more rational way, so he began a series of striped paintings using two alternating colours.

By 1963, Kidner had recognised the limitation of 2 colours, the problem of how to introduce a third colour was solved for him in an article on the Moire effect in the Scientific American. This effect was first discovered in Japanese silks, when the material was folded, optical patterns and colours floated above the actual patterns and colour of the material. This method produced a dramatic effect when Kidner crossed 2 colour bands with a third at a slight angle, resulting in a completely new pattern, with a wave like vertical image hovering into view producing an intense optical dazzle.[7]

The appearance of the wave captivated Kidner and wave theory became his obsession as he realised that a wave pattern produces many more possibilities than straight lines because waves can be put in or out of phase. As well as optical effects he was interested in distinguishing form from colour. He applied 3 colours to 4 forms in rotation so that no form could be identified by a particular colour.[7] This can be seen in his print Sussex 1967

Sussex 1967

In 1969 the notion of colour as form urged Kidner on to do a columnar sculpture of a wave. At this stage he became interested in Number theory as the key to "the nature of order" and "the structure of reality".[1] Kidner was influenced by Lohse, a pioneer of systems art who had written that "Through its relation to structure, technology, science etc (The ) task is to set up systems".[1] Kidner meticulously translated the column into a two-dimensional form as a painting by using a systematic method of measurements and colour-coding as seen for example in:

Column in front of its own image II 1971

At this stage Kidner began to be interested in the spaces between the lines and crisscross wavy lines began to emerge in his work, culminating in grids and lattices. These were sometimes in phase creating identical spaces in between and then sometimes out of phase so the spaces in between didn't repeat.

Kidner used this structure as a basis for creating many variations of this principle and observed that " the endless number of linear intersections both offer and resist any sort of visual resolution."[1]

Continuing with his investigation of grids and lattices Kidner experimented with various materials. He stretched and distorted elastic cloth on moveable wooden frames in geometrical shapes, in order to arrive at unexpected shapes, thus introducing randomness, instability and change into his art. He felt that constructive art needed to take into account disorder as well as order.

By 1999, chaos theory became a profound influence on Kidner's work and geometric abstraction in the form of Penrose pentagons reprinted on paper became a critical tool as a metaphor for ordering the chaos in the world. This was Kidner's response to the many dystopian world events, such as global warming, wars, ethnic cleansing, terrorism and intense nationalism. Kidner was intrigued by the fact that his pentagon patterns looked chaotic, like whirlpools that appeared and receded as he viewed them. His use of colour in these works was often random and whereas in his former work, colour was used to clarify the grid, now it subverted it. He now invested more value in unplanned elements in his work of that time. He wondered if there may be in chaos "some kind of order that perhaps we haven't yet recognised."[1][8]

In his last decade Kidner's work became more colourful and free. Titles such as Entangled Hyacinth Bulbs, 2007, Invasion of Iraq: Surprise Resistance 2007 and Particle Evolution: The End of the Tunnel at Cern.2008 indicate their subject matter. Kidner's distinguished career has included many honours, prizes and international shows. He taught at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham from 1962 to 1982 and was visiting lecturer at The Slade School of Fine Art from 1975 – 9 and Chelsea School of Art from 1981–85. He co–founded the Systems Group with artist Jeffrey Steele and others in 1969. His work is in many important collections including those of Tate Britain, The Royal Academy, The British Arts Council, provincial galleries as well as in Portugal, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Vienna, Tokyo Russia and America. In 2004 he was elected as a senior Royal Academician. He was taken on by Flowers East in 2004. Latterly he was to see a considerable revival of interest in his work, as general critical interest returned to the abstract painting of the 1960s and early 70s.