In some of the paintings, borders define spaces but at the same time become pictorial spaces in their own right. In others the boundary between figuration and abstraction is straddled. Sometimes the line between then and now is crossed. The geographic and cultural borders encountered on an American tour are the subject of still other pictures. The paradox is that though these borders appear to confine physical or pictorial space, they also confirm the existence of vitality of the spaces beyond.
Light appears magically from bands of dark brown or gleams suddenly from a strip of orange.
This was how Patrick McCaughey described the illusory effect of light conjured up by the remarkable paintings exhibited by Col Jordan in Melbourne in 1967. It is this unexpected addition of a lyrical element to the hard edge abstraction which has enabled Jordan to extend his early work into a personal vision which over the years has outgrown the first impact of op art and hard edge and become the source of an unending display of virtuosity. It was, ironically, the Flotta Lauro scholarship in 1971 which took him to Europe and America to see what was happening in the important art centres of the world which confirmed him in his resolve to follow his own instincts. Jordan withstood the pressure and his present work shows the wisdom of this decision to pursue his own vision through the limitless possibilities of colour abstraction. Complexity and paradox, the illusion of movement and light juxtaposed with solidity, colour used in glorious sensual profusion or in pristine orderliness, these are the elements which instil Col Jordan's canvases with their own particular intensity.