Junkyard

1988

I did this small piece as part of a demonstration at a convention.   It uses something similar to Alan Clark's controlled accident techniques.   Alan often uses all sorts of non-traditional ways of applying and moving paint on the surface with such diverse tools as sheets of acetate and even a vacuum cleaner!   For this piece I used the slightly less bold approach of applying paint with a ragged piece of corrugated cardboard.   The cardboard piled up paint in some areas and scraped it away in others, leaving behind these rusted sheet metal shapes.   I then went back and enhanced the shapes with light and shadow and with "gee-gaws," the little jagged protrusions and seams that are visual clues for a techno-artifact.

Ruins always evoke in me that science-fiction goose-fleshy feeling of unknowable stretches of time and loneliness in a vast universe.   They are also fairly easy to paint quickly for a demo.   The running gag when we worked on these demos was, "Oh -- you ruined it!"