A stunning mid-sized silver and gold painting
Part cityscape, part piano keyboard. I’ve had all kinds of feedback on this new gold and silver painting. What do you see?
170cm x 120cm (66″ x 47″)
Part cityscape, part piano keyboard. I’ve had all kinds of feedback on this new gold and silver painting. What do you see?
170cm x 120cm (66″ x 47″)
This is a mid-sized silver and gold painting that features an array of different textures and finishes. I know I have a lot of favourite colour combinations but silver and gold really is one of them. Silver on its own can be cold and harsh but when you bring in a rich metallic gold things get very interesting.
In Ride The Night I have also chosen to compliment these colours with a burnt grey (a very unusual colour I had made a few months ago) and some dashes of white and black. Using only five colours presents a challenge of its own – you have to get creative with shapes and textures to prevent the boredom setting in.
Despite being a lover of chaos I also have a need for order. I haven’t used liner shapes for a while and thought it was about time I did. So what we have here is a series of repeated background colour blocks that begin with gold and end in silver. On to this has gone a series of regular (but moderately randomized) patterns of black and white.
Some of these foreground applications were moved at right angles to each other. This is a neat little trick to move paint in an opposing direction but within an application that’s moving in the other, if you catch my drift. It’s kind of like having a solid shape of paint then putting a movement across the face of it that goes in the other direction.
I’ve used a combination of gloss and semi-gloss finishes on this painting. For a relatively easy-going arrangement such as this one it’s necessary to play with other vehicles to captivate; most notably that of texture.
As light moves across the canvas light will reflect and absorb in different ways. What you get is an undulating wave of refraction to compliment the colour differentials as you walk round it. The addition of a using metallics in the gold and silver means this painting has a very subtle lustre to it as well. Nice!
My focus group tell me that the foreground applications remind them of piano keys and a cityscape. I didn’t paint it to be that way but I love to hear about the way people interpret the paint movements.
Thanks to a neutral colour palette Ride The Night will pretty much feel at home anywhere. As it doesn’t rely on any single primary colour to carry its message it has an uncanny knack of being able to fit in wherever it’s placed.
But don’t feel like it will never be seen. The real beauty of this painting is that it absolutely CAN be seen but it doesn’t have to grab you by the throat every time you walk past it. It’s subtlety of colour is quiet enough to be unobtrusive yet the contrast of the white and black shapes brings it bursting alive and bounding with drama. It’s a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde piece I think. One minute you walk past it, the next you stop and stare.
Funny how things work out in the end.