Lawrence Fodor

Koan Box Trace Alizarin/Perylene Red

About the Artist

EDGE of CHAOS

These drawings, paintings, and multiple-exposure photographs address chaos and complexity theories as they relate to the natural world, the volatility of climate change in its disruptive effect on our environment, and the fragile equilibrium between order and disorder in nature and our lives.

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. Similarly, one gesture, mark, a passage of color, or a shape can alter the architecture and structure of a drawing or painting—and when images are captured and layered with a camera, they record uniquely shifting moments of light, space, and time.
My practice is intuitive, intentionally fluid, and innately unpredictable. In working with these active elements, chain reactions transform the picture endlessly until some form of resolution or integrity is achieved. Strategic choices also 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 the edge of chaos where systems are chaotic enough to disclose invention through their disorder yet maintain sufficient structure not to splinter nor lose identity. This juncture, where the elements of a picture, a forest, or a life never lock into place yet do not disintegrate into instability, is where paths open to move forward and explore the unknown.

Lawrence Fodor, 2024

References:
Christopher Langton
M. Mitchell Waldrop
Christian Messier
Klaus J. Puettmann

Koan Box Trace Alizarin/Perylene Red
Tree 18B, Sunset Crater national monument
Edge Of Chaos II
Edge of Chaos III
Edge of chaos I
Tree, I
Tree, 8, Napoli-Ercolano
Koan Box Trace, Green Gold/Olive Green
Koan Box Trace, Cadmium Yellow Deep/Chinese Orange/Chinese Lake