Paint and Process – Fragments and Site
This is a project that explores painting in a contemporary art context and can be adapted to fit different course durations from two days to two weeks. Below is documentation from a two week block at Saimaa Univesity, Imatra, Finland in Sept 2010.The group comprised of students from a wide range of countries including Russia, USA, Bulgaria, Spain, and Estonia.
This is a project that explores painting in a contemporary art context and can be adapted to fit different course durations from two days to two weeks. Below is documentation from a two week block at Saimaa Univesity, Imatra, Finland in Sept 2010.The group comprised of students from a wide range of countries including Russia, USA, Bulgaria, Spain, and Estonia.
The first part of the workshop is an exploratory use of process working with grounds and acrylics using PVA.
This will include:-
- Preparation of light coloured grounds using paint and PVA
- Exploration of different grounds and their properties
- Building up of surface with gestural and impasto qualities of paint
- Looking at wet into wet and oil to water based resist
- Consideration of shape, size and scale of grounds with the ‘sculptural’ possibilities of paint as ‘fragments’
Slide Talk showing a selection of contemporary artists whose work challenges conventional practice in
painting. We will look at the relationship of current painting to modernist and post modernist movements.
The talk will make links by looking at how artists position themselves to the histories of painting and how this
in turn informs their conceptual premise. The aim is to open up the nature of painting and to start questioning
what painting can be. We will then look at how paint can create and shift ‘meaning’ depending on where it is sited.
This includes the possibilities of installation and the creative opportunities that it offers. The talk will end with
a showing of the film ‘Spent’ which documents a group of artists working in a site-specific context towards an
exhibition in east London.
The next stage of the workshop uses oil paint and will establish tonal structure through glazing with
colour temperature on the acylic/PVA grounds and ‘paint fragments.’ This stage will also include:-
- Creating depth through techniques that use the different properties of oil paint in relation to opacity and translucence
- Building colour and form with consideration of how ‘blurring’ and ‘focus’ can define space within a‘painting fragment’
- Developing these strategies and forming a painterly language to provide the basis of an idea for installing within a chosen site
In the final part of the workshop you will ‘install’ your ‘paint fragments’. The ideas from the ‘process’ stage will inform the choice of site or series of sites.
- You will need to consider the physical sculptural properties of paint in relation to the surface of a wall, floor, ceiling or façade.
- The illusion of space constructed within the ‘paint fragments’ should also interact with the ‘real’ space they are resonating with.
These interventions give a speculative context within which to read the ‘paint fragments’. The meanings of which will emerge from unexpected juxtapositions that can be further developed and documented with film and photography.
The project provides a basis for the development of a personal practice; generating ideas through a range of approaches and materials. It acts as a theoretical ‘sketchbook’ that investigates techniques, materials, site, experimentation and the process of enquiry. You will learn about painting and it’s positioning within art history but will also unpick its critical legacy through practical engagement within a conceptual framework.
This will include:-
- Preparation of light coloured grounds using paint and PVA
- Exploration of different grounds and their properties
- Building up of surface with gestural and impasto qualities of paint
- Looking at wet into wet and oil to water based resist
- Consideration of shape, size and scale of grounds with the ‘sculptural’ possibilities of paint as ‘fragments’
Slide Talk showing a selection of contemporary artists whose work challenges conventional practice in
painting. We will look at the relationship of current painting to modernist and post modernist movements.
The talk will make links by looking at how artists position themselves to the histories of painting and how this
in turn informs their conceptual premise. The aim is to open up the nature of painting and to start questioning
what painting can be. We will then look at how paint can create and shift ‘meaning’ depending on where it is sited.
This includes the possibilities of installation and the creative opportunities that it offers. The talk will end with
a showing of the film ‘Spent’ which documents a group of artists working in a site-specific context towards an
exhibition in east London.
The next stage of the workshop uses oil paint and will establish tonal structure through glazing with
colour temperature on the acylic/PVA grounds and ‘paint fragments.’ This stage will also include:-
- Creating depth through techniques that use the different properties of oil paint in relation to opacity and translucence
- Building colour and form with consideration of how ‘blurring’ and ‘focus’ can define space within a‘painting fragment’
- Developing these strategies and forming a painterly language to provide the basis of an idea for installing within a chosen site
In the final part of the workshop you will ‘install’ your ‘paint fragments’. The ideas from the ‘process’ stage will inform the choice of site or series of sites.
- You will need to consider the physical sculptural properties of paint in relation to the surface of a wall, floor, ceiling or façade.
- The illusion of space constructed within the ‘paint fragments’ should also interact with the ‘real’ space they are resonating with.
These interventions give a speculative context within which to read the ‘paint fragments’. The meanings of which will emerge from unexpected juxtapositions that can be further developed and documented with film and photography.
The project provides a basis for the development of a personal practice; generating ideas through a range of approaches and materials. It acts as a theoretical ‘sketchbook’ that investigates techniques, materials, site, experimentation and the process of enquiry. You will learn about painting and it’s positioning within art history but will also unpick its critical legacy through practical engagement within a conceptual framework.
