With a drop of paint

Philippe’s MFA Mid-Thesis Exhibition

February 9 – 19, 2015
Gallery 231, Randall Hall, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA

Title: Paint-made view: 7 Dimension: 28’’ x 25’’ Medium: Acrylic Paint, Tar Gel, Latex Enamel Paint, Thread, Scrap Tarp Year: 2015

Exhibition Statement 1

Title: Paint-made view: 1, 2, 3 Dimension: 16’’x 13’’, 16’’x13’’, 16’’x 15’’ Medium: Mixed-Media Paintings Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 1 Dimension: 16’’x 13’’, Medium: Acrylic Paint, Oil Paint, Latex Enamel Paint, Thread, Zipper Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 1 (Detail)

Paint-made view: 2 Dimension: 16’’x 13’’, Medium: Acrylic Paint, Tar Gel, Wallpaper, Latex Enamel Paint, Resin, Grommet Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 3 Dimension: 16’’x 15’’, Medium: Acrylic Paint, Tar Gel, Scrap Papers, Latex Enamel Paint, Found Object, Thread, Clip Year: 2014

Paint-made view: 6 Dimension: 15’’x 15’’, Medium: Acrylic Paint, Tar Gel, Post-It, Latex Enamel Paint, Mesh, Thread Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 4 Dimension: 36’’x 24’’ Medium: Acrylic Paint, Tar Gel, Latex Enamel Paint, Rubber Bands, Thumbtags Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 8 Dimension: 16’’x 16’’ Medium: Latex Enamel Paint, Sewing Pins Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 9 Dimension: 30’’x 28’’ Medium: Latex, Latex Enamel Paint, Fabric, Thread Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 5 Dimension: 15’’x 15’’ (flat), 7”x 3.5” x 6” (as shown) Medium: Acrylic Paint, Tar Gel Year: 2015

Paint-made views: 11, 12, 13 Dimension: 55’’ x 40’’ x 2.25’’ (Each) Medium: Mixed-Media Paintings Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 11 Dimension: 55’’ x 40’’ x 2.25’’ Medium: Oil and Litho Ink on Canvas, sides wrapped with yellow fiberglass tape Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 12 Dimension: 55’’ x 40’’ x 2.25’’ Medium: Oil, Litho Ink, Gouache, Polyacrylic Urethane, Plastic Tarp on Canvas, sides wrapped with yellow fiberglass tape Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 13 Dimension: 55’’ x 40’’ x 2.25’’ Medium: Oil, Charcoal, Conté Crayon on Canvas, sides wrapped with yellow fiberglass tape Year: 2015

Paint-made view: 10 Dimension: 24’’x20’’ (Top), 12’’x10’’ (Bottom) Medium: Latex Enamel Paint, Tar Gel, Oil Paint, Polyurethane, Floor Buffer Year: 2014

Paint-made view: 10 (Detail)

Paint-made view: 14, 15, 16 Dimension: 12’’x12’’, 12’’x12’’, 12’’x12’’ Medium: Sharpie, Encaustic and Resin on Wood Year: 2014

“With a drop of paint” Installation view: 1

“With a drop of paint” Installation view: 2

“With a drop of paint” Installation view: 3

Exhibition statement: 
It all started with a drop of paint on the floor.

How curiously odd, round, gooey, shiny, blobby, rubbery, and familiar that misplaced droplet looked. It sat very determinedly on the ground along with all the other bumps, cracks, and scratches. It took on its own existential desires and figure-ground relations while humoring my eyes with its queer beauty. The droplet already embodied a sense of other-worldliness I tried to reimagine by pushing paint around. The question of what to paint seemed to matter less after that encounter; it was up to me to give the droplet a structure.

It is not about something particular. 

It is a simulation, weaved in layers and references.

A painting is a paint-made view — an always simulated view that weaves the physical world around and within on the same plane. On it, paint is the figure and the ground, whether it is on a wall, on a canvas, or on its material self. The texture of the paint-made surface then can be perceived as an extension of a physical reality (internal and external) and of an already-simulated space (experience), connecting through a sense of touch. Constructed upon systems of signification, self-referentiality, and differences, paint takes on the form of an interpretative tool in order to give shape to sensible yet invisible thoughts. Ambiguously structured in its form and content, a painting acts as a figure grounded in meaning and also as a ground on which the meaning resides. Affecting and affixing the seeming duality with layers and references, a painting simulates its capacity to not only enhance the perceivable world but also introduce another by generating its own meaning.

In simulation, I zoom into the drop of paint and thread it as a paint-made view in the effort to see how it sees.