Riptide Painting

A riptide is an extremely strong, unpredictable current that flows across another. Working in reverse, the image is constructed within a frame of taut silk. I paint from behind the canvas, pushing oil paint in choreographed gestures that reveal themselves on the other side, like the texture of a tapestry. Each tiny gap formed by the warp and weft of silk thread is filled with an extruded pixel of colour, resembling the organic patterns of lichens, the skin of a reptile or a galaxy. The pressing of paint unveils to us the underside of the mark, the moment of contact between material and surface that we would never ordinarily see. Light plays a pivotal role in the creation of the artwork, guided by the idea of transverse orientation, which is the behaviour of flying insects that orient themselves toward a distant source of light. Light passing through the silk serves as a guide, revealing areas where paint has not yet touched the surface; it acts as an anchor point, a signal, a place to catch the light. As the screen fills with the movement of paint, the glow from the other side is slowly obscured to the artist behind the screen. The paintings exist through their unbridled unpredictability, engaging in a dialectic that dissolves the hierarchy between painting as an illusion or imitation and painting as an archetype; a free, material process.