New Works
Well over the past couple of weeks, my work has altered its look, again.
I quite like it, and it came to me quite quickly and I impulsively started making the objects, without stopping to think too much.
It started off from initially finding this really old tin of lead white paint from the metal sheds at the back of the college, which I then started to use on pieces of wood after skimmng the oil off the top.
It is such a nice, old tin. It’s called Ibex, and its got drops of paint running down the side, and is slightly rusting, and the words are obscured, but really, it is aesthetically quite nice, and I really didn’t want to waste that aspect by just chucking away the empty tin.
So once I started looking at Donald Judd, I was inspired by his way of presenting works, specifically his stacks (pictured Untitled 1966, 1979, 1993.) And I really like that way of comprising the positioning of the works, thinking that this would work really well if I displayed the paint cans in their own self contained unit, and spreading them along the wall, either vertically or horizontally, in either one row or column or two or three.
I’ve attached an image of a sketch I made imaging the layout of this piece.
I was also lucky enough to find a really intriguing can from an illegal tip which I can use, and two friends subsequently gave me various pots of paint in various stages of decay, some are more interesting than others, but I have a nice enough collection to make a composition of these, what I refer to as “paint boxes.”
I’ve so far made eight, two of which are pictured.
For the first box, I covered the inside in a thin sheet of metal aluminium which I had spare, wanting this material to reflect the material of the can, which it does nicely. I have run out of this sheet metal, so the rest of the boxes are purely made of wood.
With the addition of corner braces, some on the outside, some on the inside, the boxes themselves are very basic and, kind of rubbish really, thanks to my bad handiwork, but actually, I don’t know that a perfectly made box would really compliment the context of the piece. I believe the difference between box and paint can, if the box were perfect, would be a bit jarring.
I’ve also started painting the inside of the boxes the contents of the paint cans, if any, which sometimes adds more colour, or not, as I have mainly neutral colours or no paint at all. But I think that kind of randomness adds an unexpected element, there’s no pattern to it, there’s no symmetry, and why should there be? Does that matter? I don’t think so. I like random, it’s quirky.
This move is bringing my work to a new layer. By doing this, I am literally presenting paint as the object, the painting literally becoming the sculpture/installation.
Later, I will question more the motives behind this work, and how it works in a space etc.
