Untitled #5

This suite of six new prints evolved from my recent group of twenty-four paintings, collectively titled Inverse Studies. The small paintings began as an experiment. They represent the rediscovery and integration of a more intuitive painting method, contrasted with a geometric module. I began the works by establishing some simple rules: each painting has no more than five succinct steps, with at least one of those steps involving the immediate, intuitive application of paint; each is different in terms of color, mood, and paint handling; and each is finished with the same encaustic grid of nine oblong forms. The inclusion of “free painting” defies my established methodology of predetermining all elements of the painting via digital technology. The works employ the familiar vernacular of my ongoing work, yet they are more improvisational.

The prints are a continuation of my interest in creating self-reflexive formal systems that contrast the digital and handmade; in this case, more pointedly, due to the use of free painting combined with digitally designed elements, and the subsequent deconstruction and reconstruction of those elements via pigment and screen printing processes.

-Amy Ellingson