Mapping Suprematism - How it began.

November 2021, sitting at home with a cup of tea. From the bookshelf, I pull out Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932 to look through with my girlfriend, Olga. I originally purchased the book from the Royal Academy of Arts when I visited the 2017 exhibition of the same name. I’d only briefly flicked through the pages in the four years that had followed, my knowledge of Russian art being somewhat limited. Olga, however, was able to provide more context to the featured works and so we flicked through the whole volume discussing each piece and picking our favourites.

Inside the book, Kazimir Malevich, the founder of the Suprematist movement, is a key feature, including examples of his Suprematist and earlier works. Seeing these pieces reminded me of my degree years when I was first introduced to Suprematism and its offshoot, Constructivism. The style captivated me back then and still captivates me now.

A week or so later, I tried creating some Suprematist art. I soon discovered that achieving the correct balance of shape within space is much harder than it looks. I needed to find an entry that would allow me to play with the visual style while aiding me with the balance.

My first idea was to use the architectural photos I had recently been taking. Architecture often holds a natural balance with strong geometric lines so I could trace over these and manipulate them further to add extra simplicity or complexity to the composition.

The second idea came to me while I was driving home from work one evening. What if I use maps or, to be more specific, sections of maps? I could imagine the oft-times chaotic layout of fields in the UK, the extreme grid layout of American cities and all number of natural phenomena that create an endless source of compositions when looked upon from a map’s unique perspective.

Thus, Mapping Suprematism was born.