All of my work before Contrast, featured a single panel that was either on a stand or wall-mounted. I wondered if a second panel would add too much distraction or if the pieces could have a conversation with one another.

 

I love experimenting so I set out to make a piece that had two panels on the same base. I wanted a stark contrast between the panels so I knew even in the initial planning that I wanted to use a black panel and a white panel. This piece needed to block out the background to simplify the conversation between the two panels so I  made opaque panels.

 

I wanted the panels to be balanced in size but quickly found that having them both at the same height simply did not excite me. The panels are the same size but I wanted to have more black peering out from behind the white panel so I lowered the front panel slightly. This subtle change allows the viewer a clearer understanding of what the piece is and how it is structured despite not actually seeing what is happing behind the front white panel.

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This piece forced me to think about how two pieces could be supported on the same base and led to other two paneled pieces such as About and Separation, two of my favourite pieces.

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Contrast was one of the first pieces that I made while I lived in Rochester, New York. At the time, I thought that I was making a double-panel piece simply to see how and if the two panels spoke to one another. I suppose one could argue that I was also making a piece that subconsciously showed how out-of-place I felt as I studied in Rochester for my MFA from RIT. That second insight came to me almost a decade later.