Reorient
Acrylic on Canvas - 3’ x 3’
Summer 21
How can a painting orient in space?
This painting was an experiment on how folding a canvas can change the painting process. This was inspired by the way that cubist paintings expose an object from multiple perspectives in a single plane. The painting was created by folding the canvas at three points and turning it 90 degrees between each layer of the painting. This painting was a new way to think through the thesis that I began developing in the following fall semester.
The first layer provided a base color and first direction to the painting. It was painted to be vertically oriented and once the canvas was unfolded, this layer was split into five sections with five different angles for “vertically oriented”, due to the angles of the folds. The following layers had the same order of operations and all had a technique to impose a grid, line, or other orienting element to the painting. The final layer was painted on the canvas in its unfolded state, and it created a topography guided by all the previously painted elements.
