Andrew Reach

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Thirteen Octoquads I, 2019
UV inkjet on composite aluminum panel
cnc router shaped perimeter w/ interior cut-outs
Ed. of 3 @ 60 x 60 inches
(note: fabrication pending)

I’m pleased that my application “The Shape of Things to Come” to the Ohio Arts Council for the Artists With Disabilities Access Program (ADAP) grant has been approved for funding. The Ohio Arts Council does amazing work for artists and the arts in the state of Ohio and I greatly appreciate their support. This is the first work I will be producing with the grant.

Below is an excerpt from my OAC ADAP Grant application:

“With this grant, I will create 4 artworks, printed on rigid substrates as opposed to media of the traditional digital print (paper/canvas). Printing on rigid substrates opens up a new avenue of exploration in my work by allowing my geometric constructs to expand beyond the confines of square and rectangular formats with use of a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Router that can cut the substrate panel to my specifications”.

This work, titled “Thirteen Octoquads”, is the first piece I’m making with the grant funding.

I’ve been working with a variety of geometric shapes, weaved with color. Putting them together in new and unexpected ways challenges me, always with the goal of the composition to elicit a visually energetic and joyful optical experience from the viewer.

I realized that I hadn’t ever worked with Octagons. Why not, I asked myself. So, while I was resting, I imagined turning the octagon into a flower with eight squares being its petals, each projecting from it’s respective segment of the octagon. The resulting arrangement, with triangular spaces left between each adjacent square, provides a link to connect them together. The space left in the middle of 4 linked octoquads provides for smaller flowers with a radiating arrangement of 8 white diamonds. 4 of these flowers surround the central pink octoquad (see detail above).

The image above is the digital file and not the final piece. I will send the file that I’m readying to printer for fabrication.