A Fault Line Painting

Jaspal Cheema is a contemporary Canadian artist, who has developed a distinctive style that reflects “chaos and beauty intertwined.” He paints reverse oil paintings on sandblasted glass exclusively. *********Oil paints and glass normally do not go together. However, he has been successful at incorporating the two together with a unique and distinctive style that he had developed during the 1995-96 period. Although it takes several weeks to complete a painting due to the lengthy drying times between different stages of the painting with Oil colours, but he's not willing to compromise on the sheer beauty of oil colours in exchange for faster drying times. Oils look gorgeous, and they continue to sparkle for a long long time. *********This is what Ray Smith says in his book,The Artist’s Handbook, 3rd Edition about painting on glass: “Glass is one of the most stable of all supports. Provided that it is properly handled, an oil painting on glass is more permanent than one on canvas. The best glass to paint on is sandblasted on one side to create a slightly matte surface that is perfect for painting on and provides a good key for oil paint. Sandblasting does not affect the transparency of the glass” p. 179. *********The most prominent feature of Cheema's work is the tremendous amount of movement, action, and interaction between colours, without leaving any traces of the tools and gestures. Materials: Cheema uses artist's-quality oil paints manufactured by Winsor and Newton from England (the paints are actually 'Made in France'). The 'sandblasted glass' is 5 mm thick and it is free of the greenish tint commonly found in glass. This type of glass is expensive, but he's very particular about using high-quality materials.