Work on Paper and Off Paper

Over the past couple of days, this work happened – or part of it. This is a 100cm x 45cm work on 300gsm watercolour paper.  Paper has a memory.  How I wish it would remember the time when it was flat, not when it was on a roll.  Makes it really hard to flatten out and paint on without marking the paper. 

This work is a bit of a new direction (not really) and definitely a work in progress – this is not the finished product!  Acrylic, gesso, watercolour, graphite, vinyl on paper – and off paper?  Vinyl and wool.  The plan was to extend out from the paper with vinyl onto the wall, and from the paper to the floor with wool.

I’m not sure if this is a step backward from my wall works, or an extension of the idea.  But, it’s something I’m willing to explore – let’s not overthink, shall we?  I just like the presence of some form of painting tradition sometimes (like the frame or substrate), then I can ‘do stuff’ to them.

Here it is installed, with the addition of some more vinyl and wool extending to the floor, anchored by more vinyl.  In comparison to recent work, this feels positively minuscule!  But, it’s an interesting exercise.  This is about 2m x 1.5m.  This straddles 2D and 3D, not merely a drawing and not completely an installation.  I think I’d like to see this in series.  Maybe 6 of them, along a wall.  Individual works, or perhaps linked by a common anchor point.