Contemplating Pattern

A warped, photo-based pattern containing lots of chain link and self-portraits. By Kim Lee Kho 2015.

Patterns, both visual and not, are something our brain puts a high priority on recognizing. Spotting deviations from patterns or expected behaviours is an important aspect of plenty of jobs and professions, such as nurses, doctors, air traffic controllers, and many technical monitoring-type jobs etc.

When I teach patterns to my students I describe them as “orderly repetitions of elements”. If they weren't orderly or repetitions then they couldn't be the “expected behaviours” I mentioned.

The chain link fencing that I've been working with for a while now is a great visual element in part because strong pattern is fundamental to what it is. That's partly why I enjoy finding ways of deconstructing it or making it behave in unexpected ways, such as in my 'Insubstantiated' drapery panel, or the 'Ecdysis' portion of 'Skin/Ecdysis'.

Playing with that will also be the basis for my upcoming exhibition Chains Unlinked at the Art Gallery of Mississauga this summer (opens July 2).

Lately though I've been thinking about the construction of patterns and what they could be made from.

The image at the top of this page is a new piece or working file of a photo-based pattern (self-portrait with chain link) constructed in a way that it forms a lattice structure not unlike chain link itself. I love how the pattern takes priority over the content of its elements at a certain point (when the scale is right).

And just because I can't leave it alone, it gave me pleasure to warp the pattern so it behaved a little like the drapery panel.