I use Flake White – white lead – a poison, hard to obtain and horrifying to use. It’s often a battle, using white. Thick white, a clumsy doorman not letting us pass. Or white when it crushes and deadens and obliterates and makes me despair that all delicacy is lost. White a sullen spoiler, muddying the colours and messing up their clarity and their strength. All of those whites are needed at times. Then there’s thin white, moving and swirling, each brushmark a possibility. White over white, inviting us to ponder the space between the two (how can this space be infinite, yet non-existent?). White when it floats and sings breathily of soft sweet puffs, gentle vaporous wisps. Warm fat white sitting plump on top of the canvas, creating a stepping-stone between the viewer and the deeper, sinking, more troubling layers of paint. White like a capable nurse, making things clean and decisive.
I wrote the above in November and I was thinking about it today in the studio, as I threw white paint (this time acrylic) over much-drawn-on paper.
