Gemini Rising

An unusual technique?

Gemini Rising is a large square painting that was created with a mix of maroon, burgundy, pink, purple, green, turquoise and gold paints. It’s creation was a very unusual one as I chose to sit atop a suspended platform to apply all the paint that forms the circles. In fact, I recorded the whole thing and you can see that in the video above. It’s quite a spectacle and something I have only ever done once.

The inclusion of that popping lime green and the turquoise has done wonders to the painting and this addition to the canvas has really defined it; both in terms of the very outer edge and also the one next to the pink. These are two much needed break points that help your eye to find natural stop points to help ease you into the next part.

Added to the way I created the painting are the choice of tools. At one stage I was using an afro comb and that was then followed by a giant version – on a long pole!  You’ll see what I mean in the video.

Details and things

There are so many intricate and fine details in this painting that it’s difficult to mow where to start. I think that the moment you get a spotlight on it a whole new world opens up. The sheer depth of the maroon and burgundy colors are really quite extraordinary. Then you get random flashes of metallic gold when you least expect it.

There are rives and cells of paint as well as a myriad of blooms and blends. In places the tonal shifts are subtle yet in others they are pronounced. This painting is very much a tale of two halves. On one you have a rigid structure and a contained series of applications that have clearly defined boundaries.

On the other you get a wonderfully organic series of flows and shapes that defy the logic that surrounds it. It’s almost like a controlled form of chaos. Marvellous!