PAINTING – Black as ice

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010607 by ~hanswendland on deviantART

Black as ice, is an exercise of black on black. In this work I created a scenario where black exists in many forms on several layers. I also wanted the blacks in this painting to bleed into “life” or “opposite”. I used white to create the illusion of “life”, and red as opposite of both black and white. Between the opposites, I painted a forest.

For a number of years I painted with single colors, and black & white. This experience was very challenging, and led to work of single tone paintings and studies, where I explored painting with different medias, simultaneously, in the wet. In this painting starting with a base of different black tones, I created an inverted image of the forest with white and red. I then hid the forest behind layers of mixed black, so the different tonalities of black layers dominate the scene giving it a sense of calm… while in the background, you can still clearly see the red, raging in flames.

With this painting I wanted to portray the “fire inside” that some times exists in the strangest of places.

I worked at length on this piece, as the underlying layers are as important in the construction of the work as the details above. Getting the media to work together and maintain focus on the two main elements of this painting, was the biggest challenge. I put a lot of emotion in this painting, which I like very much and it was quite difficult to let it go, fortunately, the collector that acquired this painting is also a good friend, which means I still get to see it from time to time.

This painting is 1m x 1.5m in size, mixed media, on stretched canvas and was part of the collection of paintings I featured at the Wendland Gallery in Ascona, Switzerland in 2006. It was sold to a private collector.

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Published:
19.10.07 / 9pm
Category:
Abstract, Art, Mixed Media, Painting, deviantArt