Ground Clouds Painting

Ground Clouds was exhibited with my Honours project 'Lonely Together' in 2017 at the Curtin University Degree Show. This oil painting canvas is work that aims at isolating the viewer. This is achieved by the cold hues of the Prussian Blue, Titanium White and Archival Smooth Gel Medium mixture. The process of this painting is the same to Despondency’s, the only difference is the cold isolating tone the painting illuminates. A discovery made within this process was when I began to realise that the painting needed darker tones to ground the cold tones, or something to situate the colder tones against. Scraping these more prominent tones back and layering the colder tones on top completed the desired effect. The marks in this painting are passive, they are muted against the monochromatic background. The metaphorical connotations for this painting can include, but not limited to, a misty landscape, ice, and the Antarctic. Mist, characteristically, blocks an individual’s line of sight, it speaks of uncertainty. The Antarctic speaks of polar landscapes, glaciers and a barren, isolating and cold landscape. The ‘trauma’ that is evident on the surface of the painting, which is the direct result from the scraping process over semi dried layers, creates a ‘skin’ like quality. Serving as a metaphor for the human experience. The stillness that the cold tones and marks offer in Ground Clouds create a strange sense of stillness centering from the center of the piece. Allowing the viewer the opportunity to quietly ponder the piece. This is where Ground Clouds differs to Despondency the passive marks contrasting the active marks, the cold tones opposing the vibrant tones.