Artist's Statement
	My work is a metaphor of the emergence of order from complexity, especially the mother of all emergences: abiogenesis. The creation of life from inanimate matter must surely have occurred in a liquid and it is through the action of liquids that I create the source material for my images. Enamel paints in primary colors are forced to mix, very briefly, in a state approaching turbulence. At the edge of chaos, the paint generates unpredictable and occasionally astounding forms that nonetheless appear familiar. Applied to Mylar and scanned at high resolution, these paintings are the basis of my work. The strange colorful forms that arise in the paint sometimes consolidate into a kind of inhabitable, albeit surreal, space. I spend countless hours wandering there, searching for some magic portion that comes alive and stops me in my tracks. What happens is a kind of emergence in a visual field as when an unrecognizable object suddenly makes sense. Content and meaning also emerge as I manipulate the forms into a sensible composition. It is as if I am exploring some fantastic hallucinatory Oz and bringing back snapshots to share.
	Home Gallery (c) 2009 R.J. Wallat