The newest series of paintings by Laura Watt continues her trajectory the past 5 years of deft-ly combining pattern with rectilinear and curvilin-ear geometric forms, extreme vectors along with large swaths of bold color and gestural shapes. The result has been abstractions that span purely non-objective to highly referential (often aided by leading titles) compositions and often with optical and illusory overtones and psyche-delia.
Watt’s aesthetic shifts along this path have in-cluded her starting compositions with large pas-sages of stained paint, mostly dark, moody col-ors on canvas which provides the ground and creates distinct areas and unique points of entry to place the patterns, vectors, and resulting forms. Initially, Watt layered patterns to create overlays and a unique level of complexity in each composition. Now, she makes distinct, large scale geometric patterns and forms both the subject and focal point, for exam-ple, Memory of Florence and Duomo, below.
In these new paintings, Watt makes
