Black Geometry

Knowledge Bennett | 2021

Created in 2021, Black Geometry marks a shift in Knowledge Bennett’s practice from the all-over surfaces of his original black paintings to geometrically shaped canvases. The materials remain consistent: black acrylic and black diamond dust. The transformation occurs in the emergence of shape, structure, and form.

The original black paintings represented rebirth and renewal, an “in the beginning…” in which blackness held the possibility of everything yet to emerge. In Black Geometry, Bennett’s universe begins to take shape. The canvas assumes a physical identity, its contours extending the inquiry from the painted surface into the space surrounding it.

Circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles become a metaphysical vocabulary. The circle evokes infinity, wholeness, and existence without a discernible beginning or end. The square introduces grounding, balance, and the foundations of material existence. The triangle suggests the movement from a point toward dimension, a relationship between origin, direction, and becoming. The rectangle extends that foundation, suggesting expansion, continuity, and the unfolding of space. Together, these shapes offer a language for contemplating how a universe takes form.

Despite their precision, none of these works were designed on computers. Bennett constructed their surface designs by hand, using large-scale mathematical tools: rulers, compasses, protractors, pencils, and masking tape. Measurement becomes a physical and contemplative practice. Each line and interval records a deliberate act of construction, giving visible structure to an unfolding inner universe.

Across these surfaces, black acrylic and black diamond dust hold light in shifting relationships. Forms emerge, recede, and reveal themselves as the viewer moves. Blackness carries depth, energy, and the potential for further becoming.

Black Geometry represents the very essence of things forming from the beginning that never began.