Positive, Negative and Neutral Spaces

A focus of recent discussions in my Grade 9 Sculpture class was about how artists explore the use of space in their works. We initially experimented with 2D shape before moving to 3D exercises and at the same time looked at contemporary artists such as Australian sculptor Simeon Nelson. As composition is often a challenging aspect of sculpture for students at this level, I decided to set them some perimeters from which they could develop their own abstract sculpture to be based upon the use of positive negative and neutral spaces. It became like a game in which the rules should be strictly followed.

So here were the guidelines…

• Each student would use 10cm square panels. Solid squares (made of coreflute card) would represent the positive areas. The empty spaces in and around the sculpture would be the negative spaces and perforated squares (plastic weed matting from the hardware store) would be the neutral spaces.
• For visual interest, three coloured panels of primary colours were also to be added somewhere in the sculpture.
• Reinforcing sticks would be used to support the panels and may be incorporated as part of the design.
• No more than two panels of the same type could be placed along side each other (that included internal negative square spaces too).
• The sculpture had to stand at least 3 panels high, but should have a base no larger than three square panels.
• The panels and stick frame would be held together with a combination of PVA glue and hot glue.

The exercise not only tested the student’s compositional skills, but also their measuring and construction capabilities as well. While several students went beyond the 3 panel high limit, they quickly realized that the higher they went, small errors at the base became more and more exaggerated. In the end the better designs were lower in format and remained relatively simple, with the overall effect of looking like they had come straight from the Bauhaus workshop. The students certainly enjoyed the challenge that this project provided and the game format made the notion of developing abstract composition far more interesting.