Equilibrium is one of 5 artworks from the series The Colour of Feeling by Thomas Lisle. The collection is made up of reflections on psychological, environmental and philosophical ideas that inspire Lisle, combined with the ideas and techniques about the future of painting in the digital realm. The animations are attempts to make animated digital paintings which have visual dynamism, beauty and energy. Each piece can be seen as a representation of a psychological 'complex'; the easiest way to describe a 'complex' is a 'structure of the psyche that gathers together similar feeling-toned elements'.
"The idea behind 'Equilibrium' was that of holding a gas in a spherical volume and applying forces and movements to the gas and asking it to find a balance so that you could see the sphere again. I think balance is a fascinating concept; it's needed everywhere, from economics to psychology.These animations in the 'The Colour of Feeling' are inspired by forces and ideas that can be found in nature and our psyche, with a central theme of finding balance and equilibrium. I see the autographic, the hand-making marks and drawing as central to my work. Using digital 3D paint strokes to expand the boundaries of what a paint stroke is capable of. I use 3D paint strokes as the basis for gas, liquid and particle simulations to make digital visual time-based equivalents to traditional abstract painting, a kind of digital painting for the 21st century.
All the pieces use complex procedural and generative art programming to make carefully controlled abstraction as well as chaos and randomness, which is then manipulated and composed into some kind of visual order. We live in ecosystems that took billions of years to arrive at the equilibrium we have inherited, and the dangers of destroying it- are only just starting to be felt. "
- Thomas Lisle
