Acrylic on acetate shown on two x-ray viewing boxes. These can either be set to flash automatically (on for 3s./off for 6s) or be operated manually. Only one of the acetates is shown on the boxes but the public is invited to pick up the others left on the floor and hold them up to the lightboxes.
This piece is part of a series of works I am currently building called ‘Painting isn’t dead but it is exhibiting curious symptoms’.
It contrasts gestural visceral painting (which is loosely based on macro photographs of other artists' marks or found marks as shown in Deja vu, 2010) with a scientific and detached way of looking. The colours are as they were ‘found’ but change through the light: thicker marks become more opaque, almost colour-less, thinner washes light up like stained glass while the colours become more intense. The work questions the meaning of painting in the context of scientific methodology and knowledge systems.
acrylic on acetate, x-ray viewing boxes