Artwork can be passively looked at or actively read.
Christopher Willard's recent exhibition It isn't What You Think typifies his continued exploration into the space between visual and verbal language. His paintings, seen at Herringer Kiss Gallery utilize a vocabulary of optical pattern play and illusively structured color schemes. An enigmatic, yet eerily thematic sentence punctuates each paintings surface with mechanical precision. I felt that the combination of these elements confronted my initial read and compelled me to search for possible connections.

Willard's work prominently features an idiosyncratic use of grids, which allows him to articulate his interest in illusion and color contrast. This is known in optical studies as the scintillating grid. Willard's variety uses hand painted white dots on intersections of orthogonal bars against a black background. These dots successively disappear and flicker at random. Willard further pushes this as each grid features orthogonal bars in either warmer or cooler hues. This causes the white dots to appear teal or orange until closely looked at again. I could sense a theme of close examination and re-viewing coming into sight with this motif.

Larger squares and rectangles reside directly below, reinforcing and adding variety to Willard's geometric language. Resembling palettes in color theory manuals, these remind me of color studies, suggesting an inside look into his process. It looks as though Willard is trying to work out a system for his geometric arrangements. Although they effectively suggest an optical movement and contrast, they also look plotted out in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. Ultimately, I can't really tell if these compositions are highly planned or completely intuitive. Yet, the color and size of these shapes reoccur often, generating a sense of cohesion between each painting within the series.

Willard's practice is split between that of artist and writer. This is made apparent by a discreet textual line, meticulously etched onto a fragment of each painting. These sentences not only act as the title, but also serve as a compositional linchpin and intellectual take off point. "Let This Be A Lesson" and "Not An Afterthought But A Before Thought" give a further look into his process. They seem to imply that Willard is in fact trying to work out a system for placing his squares and rectangles. The line "Not A Lot But More Than Enough" acts in much the same way but is more vague. These sentences seem to come across as literal statements, setting me up to view his paintings. Conversely, they also come across as curious quips, creating a layer of ambiguity to digest.

Willard points out that these one-liners allow him to "define a space not fully articulated by the visual or textual". Undoubtedly, the combination of these visual and verbal semantics allow me to read his paintings in an undefined way. Sentences such as "Impossible to Overlook" and "Something to Look Into" obviously refer to the simple act of looking at his paintings. But upon closer examination, these texts act more like a cheeky didactic, prodding me to look at images that are not easy to look at or are not there at all. Before I knew it I was forced to ask just how far to look into? And what is overlooked?

Willard's paintings ultimately function between a duality of looking and reading; of seen and implied. Interestingly, particular elements within this duality seem to reinforce and disconnect at the same time. The space Willard defines is both linear and non linear and is, I feel, a natural consequence to the combination of visual and verbal word play. A space true to Willard's sensibility that, isn't what you think.