SESSION: Patterning Worlds: Non-Figurative Art in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Non-figurative art encompasses visual systems built on repetition, simplification and abstraction. From concentric circles to angular patterns and linear diagrams, these forms have been used across cultures to structure space, convey relationships and generate complex visual experiences. While differing in execution and cultural setting, geometric, schematic and abstract strategies often co-exist with figuration, offering alternative ways to organise and convey knowledge.
We explore how non-figurative forms operate within diverse aesthetic and cultural contexts. Attention is given to the design principles that structure non-figurative compositions, the roles these motifs play in ritual, social and spatial settings, and the perceptual and cognitive processes through which viewers engage with these visual systems.
In this session, these questions are addressed through case studies that examine how non-figurative modes operate within different aesthetic, ritual and epistemic frameworks. The papers explore how geometric, schematic, and other non-figurative strategies interact with figuration, structure, surfaces, and bodies, engage viewers perceptually, and articulate relationships between sound, vision, space, and knowledge. Taken together, they highlight the versatility of non-figurative systems across media and temporal contexts, and show how patterning, repetition, and visual reduction contribute to the production and transmission of cultural meaning.
Session Convenors:
Sanja Savkic Sebek, Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas (University of East Anglia)
Bat-ami Artzi, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino [Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art]
Felipe Armstrong, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino [Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art]
Session Speakers:
Max Carocci, Richmond American University in London
Semasiographic Systems of Baja California: Non-Figurative Signs for Communicating (with) the Invisible
The few published studies of geometric art by Indigenous peoples of Baja California reveal a rich precolonial visual culture associated with spiritual and cosmological meanings. Native groups such as the Kiliwa, Cochimi, Kumeyaay, and Luiseno used a vast inventory of geometric and abstract motifs in a variety of forms: from mural paintings and rock etchings to sand drawings, landscape interventions, and colourful ceremonial boards. Oral traditions and missionary reports have contributed to the reconstruction of some of the ancient meanings, but it is not yet clear how each of these forms may be related to other expressions, if at all.
Because research on this topic is currently in its infancy, this exploratory study raises questions about how these non-figurative elements operated, whether independently or as part of broader visual cultures created to communicate and store esoteric information related to religious and ceremonial life. While at this stage some conclusions may be simply speculative, the paper provides methodological suggestions for interpreting such non-figurative inventories of recurring themes across media.
Sanja Savkic Sebek, Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas (University of East Anglia)
Beyond Figuration: Schematic and Geometric Strategies in Maya Art
Maya visual culture has traditionally been celebrated for its figurative richness, naturalism, and narrative density. This paper reconsiders that emphasis by foregrounding schematic and geometric strategies as integral components of Maya artistic practice. Drawing on examples from San Bartolo murals, Classic period ceramics, and Puuc architecture, the study explores how non-figurative modes—characterized by reduction, patterning, and modular repetition—functioned not as decorative supplements but as autonomous visual systems. Schematic elements simplify and abbreviate figural, vegetal, or architectural forms, while geometric motifs such as frets, scrolls, and lattice designs articulate rhythm, space, and surface modulation. These visual strategies are shown to be conceptually active across media and historical periods, coexisting with figural representation and often structuring compositions independently. Rather than a binary opposition between figuration and abstraction, Maya art mobilized multiple visual idioms, each serving distinct perceptual and symbolic roles. This reframing contributes to broader discussions on indigenous American abstraction and visuality, challenging assumptions inherited from Western art historiography and offering a richer understanding of pre-Columbian aesthetic systems.
Paolo Fortis, Durham University
A Geometrical Conundrum: Abstract Figuration and Figurative Action in Amerindian Art
Amerindian art, especially from the Lowlands of South America, has been classically depicted as averse to forms of visual figuration. Hence, ‘geometric’ art—e.g., body decorations, designs woven in hammocks and baskets, etc.—has been the focus of most studies and theoretical reflections. While this characterisation is based on ethnography, it has, on the one hand, led to the relative neglect of forms of figuration—either sculptural or graphic—and, on the other hand, hindered consideration of long-term stylistic changes that might have led to contemporary ‘geometric’ styles. In this paper, I propose to look at examples of so-called ‘geometric art’, such as that of Guna women’s blouse designs from Panama and other related cases, as a complex mix of ‘geometry’ and ‘figuration’. Not unlike other Amerindian forms of body decoration, Guna women’s designs index human creative skills, with an emphasis on biographical time. By the same token, the insistence on figuration in contemporary Guna designs shows a continuity with early forms of figuration in the historical account. ‘Geometry’, or ‘abstract’ art, thus appears as a stylistic choice rather than a given, or characteristic style of a people. What might these cases tell us about the wider problem of understanding ‘geometry’ in Amerindian traditions?
Maja T. Izquierdo, University Union Nikola Tesla
Shipibo Kené Pattern Tradition
This paper examines Shipibo-Konibo kené as a non-figurative visual system that structures perception and socio-cosmological relations and is performatively engaged in ritual through ícaros (healing songs) in ayahuasca ceremonies. Building on classic ethnography and recent debates, the paper considers kené both as a literal “song-into-design” transcription and as a cross-modal alignment of visual and auditory patterning that guides attention, memory, and ritual action. Formally, I analyse kené as a generative grammar of repetition, mirroring, rotation and modular recombination applied to bodies, textiles and ceramics, in dialogue with research on symmetry perception and recurring ‘form constants’ in altered states. These patterns evoke shared perceptual responses, which rely on repetition, symmetry, and transformation to articulate knowledge and structure space.
The paper demonstrates how the non-figurative system in Amazonian settings surpasses ornamentation, functioning as generative media that link sound, vision, space, and collective identity, thereby challenging Eurocentric views of abstraction.