A look back: Roam (Blue), 1999

Roam (Blue), 1999, mixed media, 33" x 48"

I've been thinking about some older work for a while now and this piece in particular, over the past week. I don't know why, but I've felt the urge to unwrap some older work and post them up on IG for "Throwback Thursdays". More importantly, I just haven't just looked at a lot of older work in a while. I need to document a ton of work, but haven't figured out how that will work with Covid, especially with the sickness and death counts getting worse all over the country again. I need to order a light kit soon, right after my next payment comes through. In the meantime, I'll just pull out works unwrap/rewrap them and at least take some studio shots of them, until I feel safe having someone come over to shoot a bunch of work. 

This piece (above), is one of my favorite older works. I made it out of wood scraps, plexiglas and hardware. At the time, I was heavily interested in expanding my idea of what painting could be and wound up suspending a sheet of painted plexiglas above the wood surface and adding another piece of plexiglas to the bottom. Movement, color and materials were the things that drove the making of this work. One of the challenges of Roam was how to integrate the hardware into the work.This was the first time that I was attempting to have a "floating" surface, so I spent a little time figuring out how to make that part work, in addition to choosing what the image was going to be. To keep things simple, I chose one color and that was black.There were a couple of darker elements already and I felt that the black floating above the main piece would create just the right amount of counterpoint to the other colors. An unexpected treat were the shadows created when the piece is lit from the ceiling when installed, creating another layer of visual interest. 

I also liked working with the plexiglas because it was just thick enough to create a layer of distance between the viewer and the painted surface (the plexiglas was painted on the back). I painted the main body with three divisions which enhanced the feeling of movement with the floating plexiglas, which also echoed the bottom panel that was also divided into sections and had a small area of "cells" emerging from the bottom. 

I made a few pieces similar to this around the same time period ('98-'99) that incorporated a mix of materials with varying levels of success. With the other pieces, aluminium, enamel paint and shellac were major components. This approach ran its course and I returned to a more traditional way of making paintings on single surfaces around 2000. 

TM