Demo Residency

Starting this weekend, I have begun my Demo residency.

This means a bigger space to play with.

Bigger space= Bigger paintings!

I am currently working on 3 paintings within the space. All supports were found, although this time they are not pallets. My workplace is getting a shop refit at the moment, and so there are lots of off-cuts of MDF, Ply, old faded signage boards, etc for me to use/rescue from the skip.

This is great and all but I do miss the aesthetically imperfect qualities and object-ness that the pallets bring to my paintings. In the spirit of salvaged goods, I can't be picky.

This lead me to thinking...

How could I make these flat surfaces more object like?

What if I make the paint itself the object?

When large quantities of paint are left in a bucket with the lid off, (lets say 2L of leftover acrylic in a 4L bucket), the paint does eventually dry. Unless it is an oil based stain. Waterborne paints shrink and crack as it dries from the outside in.

I had an idea:

What if I tape off the sides of my salvaged MDF with sturdy tape, (I used electrical as I had some lying around), with a 1-2cm lip? It would create a shallow pool for my paint to dry in. This would give me more control, as the paint would not be able to more off the edges, keeping it from stretching over the sides.

So I tried it out! It should take a week or two to dry, it is hard to tell at this stage as my at home studio is quite damp whereas Demo is dry, so it could dry at a faster rate than my pallet paintings.

Ive used a mix of exterior acrylic low sheen, X200, interior waterborne enamel and some thickened waterborne stain.

I expect large cracks to cover areas where the waterborne stain and enamel meet. I also expect the X200 to hold its current shape better than the others due to its thicker consistency. Depending on how the dry I may pour another layer of paints on top to make the paints really dominate and claim their object-ness.

Below are the works in progress: