Col Jordan, Boderline 4, acrylic on canvas, 45.5 x 45.5 cm 2025

“In October I will be ninety. It’s time to reflect on an event which changed my life. In 1965 I was sent the catalogue of The Responsive Eye an exhibition of Op Art in New York (at the Museum of Modern Art). It was the colour images of optical paintings.

I had been committed to abstraction from the start but until I saw optical painting I suspected all imagery, including abstraction originated in a figurative source, albeit hidden from all but the most perceptive viewer. Optical painting demonstrated this was a fallacy. But for all my fascination with the characteristics of optical painting, I am not an Op artist.

I would apply the principles I discovered in optical painting for the rest of my career, but they are a means to an end not the end itself. The end in my sights was the exploration of the space created by geometry rendered in optically adjusted colour and the fascinating ambiguity which is the outcome. There they are geometry, colour and ambiguity the foundations on which my work is built.”

~ Col Jordan

Opening event: Wednesday 4 June, 6pm