Emily Carr and the mark

I'm still confronting my dislike for Emily Carr's paintings. I keep reevaluating my opinion of her work whenever I see it. I think that her less stylized works have a stronger presence than the stuff she's more famous for. What I do enjoy is her exploration of marks, not as accents or showing the spirit of the forest or whatever she was doing. But when the mark serves as a constructive element and as a gesture then I think her painting is quite strong.
I may do a future post where I site my favourite marks in art history. :)

Dimming the light

Dimming the Light, 30" by 30", oil on canvas

I find this picture to be quite interesting. It evokes a quiet intensity. And it's really strange because the matte surface of the paint (using Ad Reinhardt's technique of dissolving the paint to get rid of the glossy binder) absorbs the light. I think a work like this might contrast well with the cellophane works that I've been doing.
I wonder how low I can turn down the lights?

An experiment with oil ground

I've been wanting to try using an oil based ground for my paintings on canvas and decided I would finally give it a try. 

Scrub PVA Size onto an unstretched canvas.

Untitled (iridescent)

Untitled, 60" by 60", oil on coloured cellophane

Painting from the Crypt

Been cleaning out my storage room and look at these old treasures I found.

Untitled (Chromatic Black)

Untitled, 30" by 40", oil on canvas

The aesthetics of plastic colour

I've been thinking about the colours used in plastics and found out that plastic is actually off-white in its natural state. So any colour is added must be a dye and the dyes that are used are chosen from our modern colour charts (by whichever company the plastic manufacturers use). This confirms the notion that contemporary colour theory is based on the colour chart and not the Newtonian colour wheel. I wrote an essay about this for my History of Looking and Perception class, it is below.

Corrosive Beauty, Benign Repugnance: The Buzz of Contemporary Colour

Untitled (gold on black)

Untitled, oil on canvas, 36" by 36"