Daniela Mendes

Fine Art - BA (Hons)

A house that has been experienced is not an inert box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space.” (Gaston Bachelard,
The Poetics Of Space, 1957).

In these paintings, organic and geometric shapes merge with fluid textures to create dreamy, sense memories of spaces; the frame of the painting acting as container for both an imaginary and a real room. Oil-based inks, acrylic paint, sponges, tape on wood and sometimes paper, combine with an evocative use of colour. The sponges and tape work as entry and exit points, extending the textured surfaces of the illusory world to the physical wall and back again. Usually placed on the edges of the painting, these materials serve to emphasise the three-dimensional qualities of the work, as well as the geometric, two-dimensional shapes seen on the surface. As a consequence, the paintings simultaneously become both image and object, collapsing distinctions between the two.