A large square, blue and black painting created in enamels and acrylics
The Deep Oceans were the idea behind this painting.
Numerous and complex textural elements add gravity to the huge expanses of blue and black, and in the right light it’s a showstopper.
As far as the kind of paintings I normally create this is a little unusual. I don’t usually texturize them in such a blatant way as this; instead opting to build up layers of paint in small applications in order to raise them from the surface.
With Fifty Thousand Fathoms I have essentially put a painting on underneath and painted over the top of it. In fact I’ve painted because I knew I was going to cover it but in any case the application method remains the same. It’s the only way to put a very bold textured element into the painting.
The reason for this is because I wanted to get that feeling of descending into deep oceans through fields of kelp – maybe past a shipwreck and off the edge of the reef as the abyss appears, all consuming into a sheet of darkness.
There is definitely that feeling of deep water in here, something characterized by the use of a number of different blue tones and a little aquamarine. An additional twist to the piece is the inclusion of acrylic paints as well as my trusty enamels. I hardly ever use these water based paints but I found they had a very cool contrast to the enamel paints that I used on the underlying textures.
The material interest doesn’t stop there either: the frame is hand-made from tulip wood (old school!) and treated with rabbit glue (very old school). Two components that have been used for centuries.
The additional of the circles at the bottom is not really something I can explain. They just happened. Maybe I was thinking of a giant Kraken or something? In any case it’s a very interesting piece.
I normally rotate my square paintings so you can see examples of how they work in different orientations but in this case I feel it only has one proper way to look at it – and that’s the way it’s shown in the photos.
