Rational Concepts: 7 English Artists Portfolio

A controlled logical system underpins the spatial relationships in this monochrome print. Peter Lowe made this explicit in a statement accompanying the work:

‘an eight by eight unit grid is removed from the inside of a ten by ten unit grid. The remaining square path is subdivided into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 groups of squares and every other group is painted black’.

Lowe was committed to exploring the new aesthetic possibilities that a rational, systematised approach to making artworks could generate. He was an active member of the Systems Group between 1969 and 1975.

This print was created for the Rational Concepts portfolio, which included seven screen prints produced in an edition of 100, by artists associated with constructive art in England. The other artists represented in the portfolio are Norman Dilworth, Malcolm Hughes, Anthony Hill, Kenneth Martin, Jeffrey Steele and Gillian Wise.

Lisa Newby, July 2022