"Untitled 1" by Caroline Suttlehan

Gouache on Paper

7x10 in. each

For the last 5 years, I’ve been exploring the form of 2 cubes - a deliberate challenge to uncover complexity within one of the simplest forms - and, for me, one of the most nostalgic shapes. Some of my earliest creative memories are of sketching cubes in the margins of my school notebooks - a quiet ritual and rebellion I know others did as well when they were younger.

This ongoing exploration of two cubes has been a return to play, to recess, to a place where curiosity thrives within boundaries. Through this work, I investigate repetition as both a generative tool and a creative discipline — a way of revealing the infinite possibilities contained within a single form.

In this particular series that I’m submitting for consideration, I’m seeking to present over 60 iterations of two stacked cubes in which color is used to continually shift the viewer’s understanding of the form.

Ultimately, I hope that this series serves as a meditation on perception: the act of seeing, unseeing, and re-seeing the same elemental structure. Each piece employs color in different way to generate a cycle of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction — assembly, disassembly, and reassembly — revealing the infinite possibilities embedded in a single form.

My hope is that the viewer walks away feeling not that it was an exhaustive exploration of the form of two cubes - but rather an expansive one - that they too see the infinite combinations that can be made from the lines, shapes, and colors that make up the two cubes - all the combinations I’ve yet to make.