Space, Fire, Blood
Three paintings named for the three things they are made of: texture asked to do the whole job, with no subject to lean on.
Space, Fire, BloodThe brief
A personal exercise, set for myself: paint three textures rather than three things. Space, fire and blood — each one recognisable by its surface alone, with nothing drawn in it to name it.
The move
Watercolour and mixed media, worked wet and left to make some of the decisions. Space is the cold one, magenta and violet with white spattered through it; fire is red cut with yellow and with black where the flame goes out; blood is the densest of the three, red laid over red until it stops being transparent. The colour does the naming — take the titles away and the order still reads.
The detail
Nothing here is drawn, only laid down and then disturbed, which is why the paper has to stay visible. The white showing through the spatter is not paint, it is what was left alone — and it is the only thing keeping the three of them from going flat.
- Three paintings — watercolour and mixed media
- Texture as the only subject: nothing figurative
- Colour doing the naming between space, fire and blood
- Bare paper left as the lightest value