Experiment: household paint on corrugated iron
This is the first post in my new record of painting experiments.
I’m working on ideas from architecture, thinking about the hundreds of new concrete, steel and glass boxes going up all over Addis Ababa. Particularly when half-built, they’re like monstrous carcasses.
The plan is to use building materials to make the work. I had some pieces of rusty corrugated iron; left-overs from an old roof on a house in Donegal.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to paint them – they were very beautiful as they were – but after a few weeks I jumped in. I tried two types of household paint, an off-white emulsion and a black gloss. Because they had different bases - one water and the other white spirit - they ran into and over each other, resisting and mixing in interesting ways.
Most of all, I liked the effects when I sent more white spirit and water running down them. Sometimes you get clear, lined streaks and at others more of a soft, blurred spreading. Sometimes the paint gets washed away; sometimes just diluted and carried on down.
I think it looks like layers of weathering and decay.
I also enjoyed the way the corrugations cast shadows within the piece. I wonder how I might use the surface shape in the work?
