Pink Ruffian

After the scraping, scratching, and plastering of the surfaces in some of the 2011 works, 2012 saw a turn to actually cutting and chiseling into the surface. A logic is pursued where the acts of drawing and painting have been divided into components of furrowing and filling respectively. The brush mark has been utilised for its structural mapping of the surface, and paint has elsewhere been completely rethought as something functional like glue, filler, or a sealant for re-surfacing.

These acts of Hollowing and filling investigate the plane or surface as something to be constructed, and not as a ‘given’ of the painting proper. The focus is on the concrete (as opposed to pictorial) tableau: the ground occupying painterly space, instead of it simply supporting pictorial illusion. The work also conflates physical manipulation with cognitive articulation, wherein thinking is understood as a set of material acts and doings. The support becomes a ground for material action and thought.