Lot 179: Root 2 Proportion Perspex Relief

Peter Lowe (b. 1938)
Root 2 Proportion Perspex Relief
signed and dated 'Peter Lowe/29 April 1966' (on the reverse)
perspex
40 x 28¼ in. (101.6 x 71.7 cm.)

London, Institute for Contemporary Arts, Exhibition of Relief Structures , July - August 1966.
Brighton, The Gardner Centre for the Arts, Peter Lowe Retrospective , 1974.

This work is one of a series of studies based on the root two ratio, commonly encountered in the 'A' paper sizes. All components, including the transparent base plane, are co-ordinated according to that ratio. One reason the artist was interested in this is because a root two rectangle bisected produces two smaller rectangles of the same ratio. This unique property is pleasing precisely because of its visual simplicity. For example, a square so divided produces a double square. It does not reiterate in the same way. There is a vast literature on the use of proportion in art and architecture but it is not so much the complex mathematical aspects of so called irrational numbers that inspired this work but the quest for simplicity that characterises the artist's entire oeuvre.