Marrow of Forms

Nomas* Projects, Dundee, 2013

This installation of paintings is part of an ongoing series whereby each painted canvas is reduced to predefined minimal means. Like an x-ray of a canvas or the back of a painting, they are worked-objects as much as paintings. Through a process of painting on, then wiping off black oil paint from a clear primed linen ground, the work reveals the texture of the cloth and the structure of the wooden stretcher frame. Process and repetition are fundamental features of this body of work. In a performative sense the activity of ‘doing’ the work is the subject of the paintings. The paintings perform the activity of their own making.

The opposite of a colour, as it doesn’t reflect light, the black pigment in these paintings is not an image-making medium. Instead the black is treated as material substance as is the linen fibres and the wood of the support.

2 of 4 paintings are shown above.

See the Nomas* Projects website for further information.