Joseph Siddiqi

     I began this work after spending time on rural meditation retreats, away from the hustle and bustle of city life, where I learned to observe simple things in the moment, like the touch of the breath at the nostrils, or the feeling of my feet on the floorboards. Engaging in this type of practice opened me up to a world of subtle sensations inside the body which I hadn’t noticed before, and when I returned to my Montreal studio, I explored ways to represent these experiences through painting.

     Working on white primed linens, and inspired by Mondrian's concept of creating a pure representation of the mind, I arrived at drawing abstract compositions of vertical and horizontal lines. Within these free-form grid-like structures I painted solid areas of oil colour, representing the inner sensations I was perceiving in the moment. Each composition developed over the course of several weeks or months, with thin layers of semi-transparent glazes added to enhance colour interactions and create a sense of movement. 

     The paintings evolved in an intuitive way from hard-edge geometric abstraction towards something more atmospheric and suggestive of a three-dimensional space. In Flowering (2021), for example, I experimented with a mixed-media approach using acrylic collage, adhering round cut-out linen scraps onto the surface of the canvas. For me, the interplay of soft curves and rigid geometries mirrored the tension between natural growth and mechanical environments—the merging of the organic with the geometric—, making the subject matter resonate with themes of transformation and renewal. 

    This work was generously supported by a grant from the Concordia University Part-time Faculty Association.