mixed media

  • Environmental art – a leaf changes colour in autumn

    Contemporary art in the environment- a painted leaf

    A Leaf Changes Colour in Autumn

    Leaf, acrylic paint. September 2018

    A maple leaf painted blue with red polka dots.
    The leaf had fallen from the tree in autumn.
    The inspiration for this work came partly from the fact that the leaves on the trees were changing colour in the autumn, prompting me to think of changing their colours in other ways.
    In previous years I’ve painted acorns and suchlike in unusual colours.
    Like a lot of my work, this work involved interacting with and responding to the natural environment.
    Unlike a lot of environmental art, my own environmenntal art often involves interventions of a deliberately unnatural nature, such as here where I’ve painted a perfectly nice autumn leaf in unnatural paint (acrylic) and in a design generated from human esthetics. This is partly to convey the way that we impose our tastes and our values on the natural world.

    Contemporary art and the environment - a painted maple leaf
    A detail of the painted leaf.

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  • Abstract monochrome watercolour painting incorporating a plastic found object

    contemporary mixed media abstract art - watercolour with plastic

    An abstract monochrome watercolour painting incorporating a found object

    Mixed media (watercolour and plastic). July 2018.

    An abstract monochrome watercolour painting in which the watercolour resembles smoke eminating from a white circle.
    The found object in the artwork is visible through a hole that is cut in the painting. The object is the mixing palette that was used for mixing the paint in the painting.
    There’s a certain amount of humour in this (to me at least), as the found object was an incredibly convenient object to find. I just had to reach over and pick it up.
    I like the way that the palette isn’t obviously a palette, as an obvious palette in an artwork is a bit self-referential and solipsistic.

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