Friday, October 10, 2014

My static paintings have become intermixable like my recombinant panel works.

‘floSteppa’, the above piece, is a combination of 4 separate painting explorations: the top acrylic layer is from the shift/drift/glitch series (Example); the 2nd layer is from the wrapped works (Ex.); beneath that, from the reflective silver series (Ex.); and the bottom layer, from the minimalistic linear mandalas (Ex.).

All four series evolved completely separately over time. As I began to write this I thought of ‘floSteppa’ as a palimpsest (a manuscript that’s been scraped and overwritten many times to save parchment; sometimes, as revealed by x-ray, the centuries-later writings contradict the previous ones), maybe due to a painting being flat like paper. Now, though, I’m thinking gryphon.  Something three-dimensional, or magically living -- each series had existed in its own idea ecosystem, crossbreeding them was never a consideration (of course a lion and and an eagle wouldn’t mate!) But then, with a bit of imagination, a ‘what if?’...

(Some synchronicity; I took a break from writing this post and glanced at my google analytics. Someone had just minutes before looked at this page: Metacollage,  whose topic I couldn’t remember, so I re-read... and it’s exactly on this post’s theme, but only two layers deep.)

PS. Of course, the gryphon method could just be my musical compositional sense surfacing... listen this song from my second album: Music Is My DNA. Or practically any of the songs I’ve released as Shinjuku Zulu or K.I.A.

IMAGES:
“floSteppa”, 48” x 36”, acrylic on galvanized wire around industrial reflective tape & mixed media over acrylic bas-relief, on wooden panel 

“Do Not Not Touch”
Verdigris DNNT”  36 x 24". 20,000'' copper wire over acrylic on aluminum. Comes with a “Touching Must Be Allowed” contract.

Transformation has always been a constant in my work: from the accretion paintings and changeable sculptures (using recombinant panels or sliced sections to remix and intermix works), to the use of iridescent paint which color-shifts at oblique angles, to the use of reflective materials that incorporate the surrounding colors, to the use of luminescent-paint with 'reveals' post-lighting; to ephemeral outdoor works that melt/decay with the weather... and now, with the work above, oxidization vs human touch. (See also this Detail shot showing the underwrapping that reveals in different lighting.)

In a sense, with the copper-wrapped piece I’ve crowdsourced ‘paintstrokes’: the audience of this work is encouraged to touch the work to keep the patina of the copper changing -- it will build in some areas, be wiped off or flake off in others, while the oil from the skin of participants will protect some areas. The work is sold with a contract that states that touching must be allowed and encouraged by viewers. Ideally, it will evolve over decades or... forever. See below for a small version of this; I sped up some of the patina process as you can see.

Which leads to something I've been thinking about for awhile: the long-view. Would you buy a work of art that won't be finished until after your death? Would you buy a painting or sculpture that would take 100s of years to finish?

(If you're curious to hear an idea for a 1000 years-to-finish work, Email me.)