DIT PhD/MPhil Project
Supervisor name & contact details:
Name: Tim Stott
Tel : 014024129
Email: tim.stott@dit.ie
Weblink (if available)
Research Centre Name and Website (if
applicable)
Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media
Funding Agency
If no funding is available, please leave blank
Scholarship Details
Please give details of student stipend and
research fees covered by the funding
Subject Area
Art and Design Theory
Title of the Project
Ornamentation and Patterning in
Contemporary Expanded Painting
Project Description (max 300 words)
This research project will develop a criticism of contemporary expanded painting, and especially
ornamental abstraction, suited to a globalised understanding of cultural production and diffusion
and in line with current research into the cognitive function of pattern generation and
perception. It corresponds closely with revisionist studies of a decorative modernity which
challenge ornament’s former role as a supplement to the modernist work of art and which
demonstrate the dependence of abstract painting upon developments in ornamental and
decorative techniques, in applied drawing and design pedagogy, and in non-Western principles of
visual order.
The research project is to be built upon the following three sets of questions. Firstly, what
evidence does ornamental abstraction provide for the migration and influence of culturally
diverse principles of ornamentation? Do certain patterns or motifs “remember” others? Might
contemporary ornamental abstraction allow us to identify a network of inter-cultural diffusion
and influence different to those dominant within contemporary art discourse?
Secondly, the collapse of an antagonism or clear distinction between painting and the methods of
visual analysis and construction derived from the decorative arts is at the core of the transition
to expanded painting. What exchanges currently occur, then, between ornamental abstraction
and contemporary principles and techniques of ornament within architectural, graphic, and textile
design?
Thirdly, what strong correspondences can be established with other fields of knowledge,
especially with the sciences of complexity and cognition? In light of these correspondences, can
we develop critical formalisms beyond the grammars and taxonomies of previous accounts of
ornament? Can we, for instance, begin to think of ornament in cognitive or computational terms?
How, in turn, might this impact upon our interpretation and evaluation of contemporary painting
more generally?
Please indicate the student requirements for this project
Student educated to MA/MFA in the area of Art and Design, or MA in Philosophy of Art/Art
Criticism.
Deadline to submit applications (only for
funded projects)
Please choose College as appropriate
College of Art and Tourism