Fighting With Colours – Red Abstract #2
July 29, 2010 | Filed Under news
When does a painting become sculpture? Perhaps a more appropriate question is, when does a painting become not a painting?
It doesn’t get much more traditional than paint on canvas, but these pieces are far from traditional.
While I call my works paintings for the sake of convenience, they are probably better defined as constructions, or even just art objects.
One of the by-products of this type of process is creating a new language for art. I didn’t set out to find a way to push the boundary of the traditional picture plane, but that is one of the things that is happening in this series. Here, the picture plane is literally destroyed. The painting extends beyond the frame of the canvas, which creates tension. Each fragment is precariously bound to the edge of the picture plane. But are the fragments coming together or flying apart?
These are some of the things I ponder while I work. There are no answers, just questions, and that is the beauty of it.
This piece is the second in a set of four that began with the same colour. I started with the red/orange and, knowing I wanted to use blue as a contrast, worked with a variation of the colour scheme from the first painting. I used a lighter yellow and a deeper maroon to offset the dark blue. This piece went through many stages of painting and re-painting as I tried to find the right colour combination.
Two inches deep, this abstract is 30×30″ and has three levels of wood fragments.
Exploring Depth – New Constructed Abstract Painting
July 27, 2010 | Filed Under news
Sometimes a piece comes together ridiculously easily. The colour work, the composition works and there’s this sense of “ta-da!” at the end. Other times, every step is a struggle, every area is worked and re-worked. It’s hard to say which end product is the most satisfying. At the end of the day, it’s the process that is the most interesting part of art-making.
This painting is the first in a set of four that started with the same red/orange base colour. Each of the four has a completely different colour scheme stemming from the original red. Working away from the red/orange on the colour wheel, I went with a deeper, cooler, maroon and a warmer, paler yellow. Then I choose a very pale sage green to contrast with the reds.
The painting is about two inches deep, with layers of wood on three levels. The bottom-most layer is flush with the back of the frame, the middle layer is flush with the top of the frame, and the bottom left corner is raised above the frame. On top of that, individual squares of canvas project off the picture plane as well.
When constructing these types of paintings, I spend a lot of time arranging the wood pieces into just the right composition. These pieces are kind of like puzzles, but I don’t know what I’m making until it’s all finished. Sometimes I spend an hour finding the perfect arrangement of shapes. Throughout this process, I’m looking at edges and colours and the way the shapes overlap.
Paintings Getting Sculptural
July 23, 2010 | Filed Under news
I’ve been working on a new series of paintings that are becoming more and more sculptural.