Reach Out and Touch

In 2024, the Australian Print Workshop Collie Print Trust Printmaking Fellowship was awarded to Melbourne-based artist David Sequeira who worked closely with master print maker Martin King to develop a suite of 32 offset lithographs (25 monotypes + 7 editioned prints).

The folio of prints Reach Out and Touch demonstrates David Sequeira’s ongoing interest in the contemplative aspects of colour and geometry. Collectively the prints point towards the infinite colour intensities that are possible through the layering of transparent inks.

Adhering to a strict formula (all of the imagery is symmetrical and formed using only circles) Reach Out and Touch highlights the endless variation that emerges from tight restrictions. In Sequeira’s work, colour attains its fullest and richest potential when it is organised within the confines of geometric structure. The circles in Sequeira’s diagrammatic compositions overlap allowing the colours to blend into each other to create complex variations. The titles of the prints are drawn from the lyrics to ‘Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)’ recorded by Diana Ross in 1969. Referencing this context in these prints, Sequeira links the metaphysical aspirations of his coloured geometry with the romantic optimism of 20th century pop.

A shape without a beginning or end, the circle has been associated with ideas about eternity, unity, balance and harmony. This universal familiarity, linked with the vibrational quality of Sequeira’s colour combinations imbues Reach out and Touch with a sense of cosmological ‘unfolding’.

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