Two Dogs Art Space and the Science of Delay
Peter Davidson - delay and
scintillation 2026
Pastel pencil on pastel paper - F2
Abstract
This article positions the Two Dogs Art Space Axiom as a substantive contribution to global art theory. Developed through three decades of sustained studio practice and articulated publicly in the 2020 exhibition Delay (Akashi), the Axiom proposes that artistic figuration emerges from a non-temporal perceptual interval termed Delay. This interval structurally mediates sensation and action, generating the conditions under which artistic marks arise. By grounding artistic agency in perceptual structure rather than historical sequence, the Axiom challenges the chronological foundations of art history. The article further argues that the patronage philosophy of Robert and Janet Holmes à Court offers an external confirmation of this framework, insofar as their presentation of Aboriginal art as extraordinary contemporary practice implicitly recognizes the same structural interval operative in Indigenous mark-making.
1. Introduction: A Theory Emerging Outside Chronology
Global art discourse remains deeply invested in chronology—periodization, stylistic succession, and historical rupture. Artistic meaning is typically framed through national schools, cultural identity, or postcolonial critique. While these frameworks have yielded important insights, they presuppose that art originates within historical time.
The Two Dogs Art Space Axiom departs from this assumption. It proposes that art does not originate in historical sequence but in perceptual structure. Specifically, it asserts that all artistic marks arise from a structural interval—Delay—that intervenes between the apprehension of sensation and the execution of a mark. This interval is not temporal in the conventional sense, but constitutive of perception itself.
2. The Two Dogs Art Space Axiom
The Axiom may be stated as follows:
Artistic figuration emerges from a non-temporal perceptual interval—Delay—that structurally mediates sensation and action.
This proposition functions as an axiom rather than a historical theory or stylistic model because it is:
• Irreducible: it cannot be explained by reference to iconography, culture, or chronology.
• Presuppositional: it is operative in every act of mark-making, regardless of period or tradition.
• Non-derivable: it cannot be produced through historical analysis, as it precedes representation, meaning, and style.
Delay is therefore not a contingent feature of certain practices, but a structural condition of artistic agency itself.
3. Delay as a Non-Temporal Perceptual Interval
Delay is defined as the structural gap between the apprehension of a perceptual event and the emergence of an artistic mark. It is non-linear, non-quantitative, and non-chronometric. Delay is not a pause in time, nor a hesitation, but an interval in which sensation is reorganized, memory is activated, and perception becomes reconstructive.
Within this interval, perception is not passively received but actively reconstituted. The artistic mark does not represent sensation; it emerges from the reconfiguration of sensation within Delay. Because this interval is a universal feature of human perception, it operates across all artistic practices and it operates on a pulse not a clock.
4. A Transhistorical Framework for Global Art
Because Delay is structural rather than historical, it provides a transhistorical framework for understanding art. Paleolithic marks, classical figuration, Aboriginal painting, and contemporary abstraction are not linked by stylistic lineage but by their shared dependence on the same perceptual interval.
This framework bypasses Eurocentric periodization without denying cultural specificity. Traditions differ in cosmology, material, and meaning, but the structural condition under which marks arise remains constant.
5. The Holmes à Court Confirmation: Contemporary Agency Beyond Artifact
The validity of this transhistorical framework is externally confirmed by the landmark shift in the global reception of Aboriginal art, championed by Robert and Janet Holmes à Court. Their patronage and curatorial philosophy repositioned Aboriginal painting from “historical artifact” to extraordinary contemporary practice.
In a widely circulated interview, Janet Holmes à Court describes the work of artists such as Emily Kame Kngwarreye not as depictions of landscape, but as acts of “singing the country” onto the canvas. This framing emphasizes embodied attention and the act of making over representation. While Holmes à Court does not employ the language of Delay, her account implicitly locates artistic power in the interval where ancestral sensation is reconstructed as a contemporary mark. In this framework, the sensation resides in the specific application of the medium in relation to intent, while the implication of the idea—what the work ultimately signifies—remains the sovereign domain of the artist.
• Contemporary agency: the artist is not a vessel of tradition but an active perceptual agent.
• Structural practice over historical artifact: the work is alive, sovereign, and present.
• Plurality of outcomes: while the connection to land is ancient, each mark is contingent, modern, and irreducible.
This curatorial shift aligns precisely with the Axiom’s claim that artistic agency resides in perceptual structure rather than historical sequence.
6. Relation to Phenomenology: Beyond Lived Time
The Axiom resonates with phenomenological thought, particularly Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodied perception. However, it extends phenomenology by formalizing the perceptual interval itself. Delay is not merely described; it is operationalized as a working condition within studio practice.
In this sense, the Axiom transforms phenomenology from a philosophical description of experience into a studio-based epistemology, where the artist knowingly works within the interval that produces form.
7. Relation to Physics and Cognitive Science
In physics, structural intervals such as phase differences and thresholds condition the emergence of form without relying on linear chronology. Delay functions analogously—not as time, but as a structural condition for emergence.
Cognitive science similarly recognizes that perception is not immediate but constructed through sensory integration and memory. The Axiom reframes this understanding: Delay is the interval in which perception becomes creative rather than merely receptive. It is the point at which sensation is reconstructed as form.
8. The 2020 Exhibition Delay as Empirical Demonstration
The 2020 exhibition Delay at Two Dogs Art Space (Akashi) functioned as an empirical demonstration of the Axiom. Documentation of the exhibition is available here:
https://2dogsartspaceakashi.blogspot.com/2020/08/delay-influence-of-delay-within-artists.html
The works revealed:
• Recursive and layered mark-making
• The reconstruction of sensation through perceptual gaps
• Evidence that Delay operates as a working method rather than an abstraction
The exhibition showed that Delay is not a metaphor but a repeatable condition observable in practice.
9. Implications for Global Art Theory
The Two Dogs Art Space Axiom challenges several dominant assumptions:
• Art is structured by perceptual conditions, not historical time.
• Figuration is reconstructive rather than representational.
• Artificial intelligence, while capable of pattern generation, currently lacks access to the embodied, non-algorithmic perceptual interval that constitutes Delay.
This distinction is not technological but structural: Delay depends on lived perceptual integration rather than computational sequence.
10. Conclusion: A Global Theory of Artistic Agency
The Two Dogs Art Space Axiom offers a new foundation for global art theory—one capable of explaining why contemporary viewers can encounter profound relevance in ancient traditions. The answer lies not in shared history, but in a shared perceptual structure.
As Janet Holmes à Court observes, recognizing Aboriginal art as contemporary fosters cultural self-esteem and self-respect. By removing the “historical artifact” lens and attending instead to structural agency, we recognize that the sighting of a motif and the execution of a mark participate in a timeless, vital process.
Art, under this framework, is neither culturally bound nor historically constrained. It is the recurrent emergence of form from the irreducible interval of Delay.
All ideas presented here remain provisional and subject to ongoing refinement through practice.
Reference
Holmes à Court, J. One of Australia’s richest women’s interest in Aboriginal art. YouTube video.
