I am finding this method of pouring paint produces forms we recognize like ducks, fish, plants, continents, cells, and the cosmos.
When we give attention to how the water is moving on the canvas we can decide how much paint to pour, becoming aware of
how much energy we are putting into the system, feeling what effect we are having together.
When we try, considering the medium, ourselves and each other at once, we make beauty.
Recently, I have been painting with strangers. We introduce ourselves to further unpredictable elements, creating new features in this medium of flow.
Here is more about my current style of painting and how we do it together.
“KUOW’s Jeremy Richards joined Jesse during one of his group painting
sessions to find out what inspired his transformation.”
A painting like this one of My Love’s Horses, is an accumulation of marks composing the whole. Following the idea of an image as a product, I began to
design systems into which energies could be applied. In my current work I build a landscape for each of my paintings to form over. This 8 foot table has 144 bolts which can be
adjusted up and down to deform the surface of the masonite boards I use as canvases. Hanging large weights off the bottom of the canvas creates depressions which conduct
the water and paint mixture into two “black holes” on the surface. Here is a link to my newest tables designed in 3D using Maya.
I refer to this style of painting as “illuvium” for the term which describes sediment spreading over alluvial flood planes.
Wetting a piece of felt, we create a general shape of
the painting before peeling it away.
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We survey the landscape, the almost imperceptible hills and valleys, then think of how how we will paint around the shore of our lake to meet each other.
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I reassure any accidents we make might be the most beautiful part.
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I give a quick example of how to pour.
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We go for it.
We meet, negotiate and overlap.
Beauty happens!
This painting called “Fan,” was painted on a coat of Golden’s, black Micaceous Iron Oxide which sparkles in the light.
The table for this Wave Painting was constructed specially to curve the flow of water and pigment. You can still see the hole in the canvas at the apex of the spiral. For the texture, I mixed a special Golden medium called GAC which lists as a precaution that it may cause foam if stirred aggressively. So, I use an egg beater to mix (; The “paint” I use contains tiny mica flakes which give the painting an iridescent sheen. As the foam bubbles make their way along to the hole, they collect particles of mica making tiny islands.
The wave is an iconic shape for a painting but I also find the wave or pulse is the most fundamental component of life. These peristaltic rhythms show themselves in the texture of dunes formed as energy moves.
While it is fantastic that this painting looks like a bird, it was not the intended outcome. The eye was a dry spot which formed during the pour and the white of the beak is where the flow slowed and pooled, dropping the sediment before draining.
I am most interested in how things happen. Unlike solids or gasses, a liquid is moving in a time closer to our own. In water we can watch the same physics which are occurring throughout the universe. I design systems to show our physical inputs of energy meeting with natures.
The colluding forces are spectacular and when these paintings dry, they leaves us with a document of the actions.
Ambient Whale Metal
Rooster
Epoch
