How can an artist create the impression or ‘effect’ of movement in a painting that will, by nature, be static? Artists have experimented for centuries to find solutions to this including Edwards Degas, John Singer Sargent, Matisse and Ernst Oppler, each having developed unique methods and styles to portray dancers in motion. These artists have, at various points in their careers, focused on the representation of dancers as they captured elements of their movement, grace, strength and athleticism.

I have always been fascinated by dancers; their muscular bodies and posture, how they seem to glide so effortlessly through space and especially how they’re able to express emotion through movement. I began exploring this subject in painting a few years ago and while on this journey, I’ve been inspired by the likes of the Impressionists, the Italian Futurists and some of the Abstract Expressionists.

Dance is an art form that has often been used to express not only beauty but universal ‘truth’ and a correlation with nature and for this reason I was intrigued to try to connect, on a visual level, movement in dance with that of the mathematical Fibonacci Sequence, which is not only a mathematical formula but one that regularly shows up in the natural world.

‘Fibonacci Move 1’ is an art house experimental piece beginning as a representation of a dancer in motion. The oil painting is also influenced by a long exposure photo technique for a more dynamic effect. Incorporating technology to manipulate the original painting, this new, digital artwork attempts to capture and combine the essence of dance with the Fibonacci sequence creating a new kind of artistic expression in the digital world. Like the artists of the past who have used innovative painterly techniques to conjure emotion through brush marks and the illusion of movement I hope that these creations of mine evoke some kind of emotion within the viewer.