1-116 is a single piece made up of 116 smaller works. Each of those works was created in accordance with a set of rules.
Each painting began with a randomly chosen number from one to 116 inclusive. The first forty-nine paintings were painted over seven weeks in 2006, with numbers chosen by friends of the artist. The remaining sixty-seven numbers were painted in 2008, with numbers chosen randomly by a computer program. This reflected a change in the circumstance, as I was spending more time at work, running around after computers, than I spent mixing with friends.
Each piece had to started and finished in a single day. That is, between getting up and going to bed.
I did not allow myself to plan ahead. That is, no pieces were in any way worked out in advance.
The paintings are not (generally) representations of the starting numbers. Rather, the number is just the first link in a chain of thought, and it is possible to trace the connections from almost all the pieces back to the number they began with. Though I prefer viewers to impose their own meaning on his work, most people seem to like to have the paintings explained to them. As a compromise, a few paintings in this online gallery have full explanations of the concepts behind them. They may help the viewer understand the depth of the work, and take more from it.
Every piece had to be painted or mounted on a 29 x 29cm square of hardboard.
1 - 116 grew out of a piece based on the periodic table of the elements, and is intended to be exhibited with the boards laid out in such an arrangement.
The individual paintings are not currently for sale, and may never be.