Mondrian and I?

I was at an art exhibition just the other night when a lady, claiming to be a fan of mine, approached me. She expressed genuine interest in my art and style, and even compared my works to those of Mondrian's.  While I was flattered by the compliments, I was slightly offended by the sweeping generalizations she made in her comparison and thus feel the need to clarify my practice as an abstract artist, in relation to Mondrian.

For one, our use of colour, or rather, an adherence to a strict colour palette differs greatly in terms of our intentions. Mondrian was very much interested in the use of primary colours due to their pristine and elemental quality. To him, the primary colours represented purity, as they were the basis for all the other colours in the colour spectrum. I on the other hand am more interested in the kinetic effects of colour. Inspired by some of the optical art I was exposed to in the UK, I wanted to experiment with the illusionary effect that I could generate from overlaying certain colour combinations. In Kite series for instance, I attempted to create a sense of weightlessness by over lapping various shades of pink. On the other hand, in the wave series, I was interested in capturing the wave like movements of a sinuous curve by contrasting different hues of blue - this helped to create a sort of visual rhythm with an undulating pattern.

Piet Mondrian, Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930                      Squatri Purma, Acrylic on canvas, 1970“Shaped Canvas” (Kite) series

 Another similar yet key difference would be the distinct flatness of our works. Mondrian was interested representing a type perfect and harmonious world devoid of any human imperfections. It was thus natural that Mondrian chose to work only with pure colours to execute his vision, as any attempt to render depth or tonal values would subject the work to a multitude of human errors. The elimination of depth in my work however was intended for a different purpose. In eliminating three-dimensional depth, I was attempting to create a homologous relationship between imagery and picture surface, whereby both the painting and canvas are merged and viewed as the same entity. In that way when the imagery is seen as if its rising into space, it is seen not as freed from the surface and not as shedding the surface but rather as carrying the surface along with it.