Solar Fields

Why color matters

If you want a bold, vivid and bright piece of abstract art then this is every box ticked and then some! Solar Fields is a pretty stunning painting even if I do say so myself.

The reasons are numerous so lets start with the most obvious one – the colors. I have a tendency to mix colors that really shouldn’t go together but somehow I seem to make them work very well. I think the success of this is down to the way something makes you feel. Rarely can I verbalize that process but I sure can show it in paint.

The most striking colour, in my opinion, is the metallic purple that’s fused into every part of the painting. Complimenting that is easy if you pick colours associated with it but the challenge here is to find new ways to express the unabridged joy of colour without it being yet another bloody rainbow!

So in goes yellow, orange and green; three colours that instantly make me shudder. The reality however is the exact opposite and that’s because of the way I have arranged them. That’s where the real genius move lies (said in context you understand and not from a position of self proclamation!). The only complimenting colors you get here are white and pink so getting the whole thing to work is quite difficult.

Arranging paint

You may like to know that the way the paint is layered and placed is down to a rather nifty process I use in conjunction with my spin table machine. The trick is to use a four chamber split-cup and pour paint in opposing arcs through the centre. You can see exactly what I mean when you watch the video below.

Base coat first, then pour the split cup, spin, adjust, spin again, adjust, then the last spin. That’s it. And it’s always a different result no matter how often you try it so, what you get here is the only time this will ever exist in all of human history. If you can imagine something as being a single event in space and time, that will never happen again, then the concept is even more remarkable.