Back to the Old Reliable
10.11.2023
I have been experimenting with a new process and substrate for my paintings with this new body of work… shapes cut out of wood panels and pieced together to create a 3D collage effect. I was using my paper collage studies to create digital shapes in Illustrator that were exported to a CNC router that would read the file and cut out the shape. The process was fun, new, and exciting and I thought it would yield some really exciting results, aka a total breakthrough, but instead it led to a lot more limitations than I originally anticipated. First, the max size I could cut with the machine we have was about 15 x 15 inches, only about 38 cm for my metric friends. This felt very small to me and made me think that I would have to create all 40 works in the series and install them all together for them to have the visual impact that I wanted to present, enough to do Venice the justice it deserves. Secondly, the wood yielded a rigidity and clunkiness (definitely a technical term) that I did not think connected to the poetic and fluid nature of the environment.
So as a result of my experimenting, I have decided to return to my first love, my old reliable stretched canvas! With this decision, I feel that there is more freedom in scale and I have the ability to create various surface qualities using a combination of primed and unprimed areas within in the same painting. This will allow for the areas of structure to live alongside the more organic elements without a ton of resistance.
I still think this idea has merit and will continue to explore the idea with various wood thicknesses, ways to achieve a larger scale, and methods of layering the pieces to construct the composition. Being an artist means taking risks, which sometimes means taking the ideas rolling around inside of your head out to see if they work in reality. This new way of working has been on my mind for well over a year so I am glad I gave it a try, but sometimes you have to trust your gut and know that forcing something is not the answer either. Bottom line, I was not enjoying painting those cutouts. It did not feel right for the body of work or for the goals I have for my practice right now. So onward and upward!
I am starting with four 48 x 36 inch canvases and will build more as I complete the initial group. I plan to do a couple that are slightly larger, approximately a 60 x 45 inch size, and even a few that are smaller… about 20 x 16 inches. I am still focusing on completing 10 for this exhibition, so stay tuned to see the work develop.
Just a reminder, you can support this project by donating to my GoFundMe campaign . I am offering lots of original works of art to those who donate!
