Painting Into Thin Air

I wonder what it would look like to paint into thin air?  Perhaps not so very much unlike this?

(c) 2012 Naomi Nicholls
De-installating Hallway in Peachy Dream and Grey.

(c) 2012 Naomi Nicholls
De-installating Hallway in Peachy Dream and Grey.

Another way of painting out of the conventional frame of a canvas dawned on me when I was de-installing my Hallway in Peachy Dream and Grey.  I was pulling up the contact from the floor, that I’d ‘sneakily’ (well I thought it was pretty sneaky) painted upon to avoid the wrath of the building overlords.  As I pulled up the contact, the paint is in three dimensional space, and ‘hello’, I thought – that’s something I can play with.

I’ve also been thinking about painting onto some balloons.  I’d love to get a really bit weather balloon-type to paint on and put inside my normal wall paintings, but I need to find a place to source them.  I love how many completely random things I need to learn about in order to make art the way I want to.  This week, it’s where to source comically oversized balloons.  Next week, the world?  Actually, this week, I think I will be content with average sized party balloons.  I just want to experiment at this stage and see what happens.

Here’s a test I’ve done already of painting into thin air.  I started with some clear contact, the type I have been sticking to the floor to paint on.  I installed it diagonally across a corner and painted from the wall, onto the contact and then onto the wall again.  Then I cut around the paint and presto.  It’s kind of alive.

It reminds me a bit of James Nares, but in space.  Space!

At this stage, it’s just a ‘disembodied’ brush stroke by way of a test.  We shall see where this method reappears in the coming weeks.  Oh the suspense.

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