Name: Raymond Brownell
Genres: Geometric
Year of Birth: 27/11/1934
Nationality: Australian, based in Britain

Artist statement: I was born in Hobart,Tasmania and studied architecture there, but since qualifying in 1959, I have spent most of my life engaged in an interesting international career. My experience in architecture has had a definite influence on my painting approach -- particularly the years working for Jorn Utzon on the Sydney Opera House, when I gained valuable insights into the operation of organic integrity in the design process.

However it was while working in Paris in 1969, that I had the really seminal experience, which was an exhibition of the work of Max Bill, leading theoretician of the Swiss concrete art movement. These were artists who based their works on mathematical ideas and logical procedure. This inspired me to seek to make paintings that would reveal the fascinating structures and patterns inherent in mathematics, particularly permutations and combinations.

Each work has its genesis in a mathematical idea. The first priority is to seek out its essential characteristics, then to develop a framework which will best reflect these. The process should be consistent, so that the finished painting is solely concentrated on providing a clear, natural and comprehensible expression of the original idea, complete and self-sufficient. There is no social comment, no reference to anything in the external world, and no conscious intention to arouse emotions or associations in the viewer.

I use acrylic paint on linen canvas in a precise technique, and try to eliminate traces of brushwork (the personal) by applying the paint thinly in layers, leaving linen texture still visible beneath the paint, expressing the canvas for what it is.

Although these works are driven by a strict mathematical logic, expressed through colour, the colours often generate their own subtle optical effects or associations, so that a gentle opposition can be set up, between the rational idea and its realization, in that unreliable medium, colour. Despite this, in overall effect these paintings communicate a sense of order and harmony.