I have been searching for new materials to paint on and found the pin board above in a charity shop; as I want to step away from small canvases and work on a bigger scale. I chose this as a material because I like the texture of the surface which I do not need to prepare before painting, like my cotton pad works. All I needed to do was paint over a few coats of white and I then used a couple of old, broken dolls to spray paint around, to leave an imprint of the figures. I was inspired by Yves Klein (an artist I used in my dissertation) who usually painted women’s bodies to get a positive but, for some works he produced negatives like his ‘Hiroshima’ piece, after visiting Japan and seeing the evidence left behind after the devastating event that took place on August 6, 1945.
I have also taken inspiration from Katharina Grosse and I like using the colours pink, yellow and orange in this format, but chose to give the edges a tint of green. There is a faint trace of the figures however, they would have looked better stronger if I had moved them in different positions to capture motion in my work.
Yves Klein, Hiroshima (ANT 79), c. 1961, dry pigment, synthetic resin on paper on canvas. The Menil Collection, Houston. ©Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.
Another artist I have been looking at in terms of colour is Jules Olitski.
Jules Olitski, Patutsky in Paradise. Acrylic on canvas, 1966.
In the mid 1960’s, Jules Olitski began to spray paint his canvases to explore a wider field of colour and its properties. I like the softness of the material, they are like clouds captured onto a canvas that have mingled into one. I have used much harsher tones in my own work but can appreciate the delicateness of this particular painting.
From look at Olitski’s paintings, I decided to test a few different colours on some bits of wood that I found in the workshop.
I thought this was a good start but I need to move onto bigger ideas, as the final degree show is creeping ever closer.
That same week I went home and tried to make some space in my old bedroom, as it was hard to move around in with a big vivarium in the middle of the room. I had not wanted to chuck out the tank as it was a reminder of my bearded dragon; Leo who unfortunately passed away, a week after I had moved up to Ipswich to start University which I found hard. Even though I have memories attached and kept it for over two years, I decided to take apart the tank and use parts of it to paint on as canvas. I like the texture of the chipboard and being quite weighty compared to the familiar lightness of a canvas.
I also collected objects that were to be thrown out, as a stencil to paint over. Firstly I primed one of the panels and then added the objects; spraying over them in blue and yellow.
I decided to quickly add another layer of paint and slightly displace the items in a different position to show movement using just pink this time.
As you can see it looks like I have used many colours but it was just blue, yellow and pink blended before the paint dried. The sun helped activate the colours. I really liked this piece after I created it, but out of the sunlight, the colours dulled and I thought it was too much (hippie like) so I decided for the next panel to limit my palette.
For the second panel, I used the same items and one layer of paint; orange and yellow which I prefer a lot more.
After this, I painted onto two more pieces of wood from the workshop:
I still feel like the scale at the moment is too small, and what surface would be best to accommodate my thinking. However, I like the idea of using objects and I will search for more and bigger pieces to use.
