Drip Frame / MICHAEL ANDERSON

In this body of work I explore the use of thick and thin paint to create borders and areas of containment that are both physical and compositional. I’m interested in extreme contrast of action, doing large, aggressive and messy Pollock-like splatters then meticulously pouring paint into the incidental grids they have created. Sometimes the paint runs over and that's okay.

I use many different oil and water based paints in combination with polyurethane, PVA and other mediums to make mixtures of varying thicknesses, opacity, viscosity and colour strength. I’m interested in how these mixtures readily interact and self-level when wet, and how they lose these qualities as they begin to dry. This new body of work continues with that, still having plenty of material interaction while also leaving room to explore how thinner paint can move around thicker dried paint, highlighting tiny drips or running up against an edge, creating surprising mosaic-like qualities.

In my previous recent work I had been pouring acrylic borders around the ply surface to contain all of the oil paint and polyurethane workings inside it. Doing this I noticed interesting patterns in the puddles left on the studio floor by the paint running off the edges. I began thinking about how to incorporate that directly into my work, and this show is a culmination of all the ways I have done that. The title Drip Frame refers to a method I have been developing where I pour acrylic paint onto a surface which is raised above another. Complex and textured patterns emerge on the lower surface as the paint drips down. Less specifically Drip Frame describes many of the dualistic concerns I am working through in the studio: the chaos of action painting versus the desire to create a composition, and how these might be unified.