By my understanding you either connect with drip art or you don’t. It’s very rare to ever meet someone who sits on the fence with their like or dislike of the technique. In many ways there is a very fundamental, almost childlike beauty to it. This is not to undermine or belittle the technique of course but merely to interpret it as a very connective medium. If you can get over the obviousness of the paint applications for what they are you can really get an insight into the steps that led to each and every one and ultimately the creation of a piece of drip art.
This piece is as fascinating and challenging as I have at the moment for two main reasons – it’s basic yet brash colours and it’s simplistic gestures arranged in a complex way.
There’s never going to be an easy way to dissect a painting like this and it will mean very different things to each person that looks at it but there are some underlying characteristics that define this piece. The black base layer is perhaps the most striking thing you notice. Few paintings use this as a background colour these days – I don’t know why – I love it. This is very glossy as it is painted in my favourite enamel paint. On to this I applied white and fluorescent orange/pink colour acrylic. Black is a very final colour – it doesn’t do anything except put a full stop against something, especially in a painting.
In it’s purest form the genre of Abstract Expressionism is just that – a way to express and communicate. I’m not entirely sure what my expression is with this piece but one thing is for sure – it’s message is being shouted very, very loudly indeed.
World of Trouble measures 101cm x 76cm x 38mm deep.