Poles Apart

Splish, splash!

It’s amazing what you can do with lime green, pink, black and gold. In fact, as with anything like this, the options and choices are infinite and you can chose to do almost anything with paint and canvas.

So, it is with this wanton abandon, that I set about creating Poles Apart. I don’t do many of these ‘splash’ type paintings in a year but when I do I make sure I absolutely go for it. To be fair, it’s hard not to when you consider you’re creating two big movements with two significant throws of your arm.

In many ways it’s quite a pressured thing because if it doesn’t spread out far enough or the angle and speed at which the paint is applied is off or incorrect then this effect simply won’t happen and you have to start all over again.

I am not kidding – this is how critical the first two splashes are. If you get that right then you can relax into the rest of the painting.

The other colours

The main splashes though are only part of the story as they are going to get lonely by themselves. Adding a supporting cast of other colours like silver, black and gold help to temper the wildness and freedom of the rest of the painting by adding some gravity into key areas.

Here I can play with more elegant and carefully placed shapes to accentuate the movements of the main colours. These additional layers also help build up the textures of the painting and add another quality to it when you get up close.

There is no denying that this contemporary painting is a show-stealer and guaranteed to be the focal point of any space it is hung in. As it’s also quite a large size it fills spaces well and brings a lot of light and warmth when it’s hung.