Painting is my Spirituality
Chris Crewe |
Toronto Artist |
Read My Latest Article on Medium
Art is an Explosion
Take Off Your Shoes. Enjoy!
One Hand Clapping; A Silent Supernova
Sledgehammer Painting developed as a response to other contemporary forms of painting such as drip painting, splash paint, or splatter art.
A stark contrast in blunt force and physics separates this genre from the rest, the half moon eye represents the high power force and velocity it took to make the mark, a paint bush can make, a clumsy warp speed collision which creates a small supernova or big bang; a miracle in time captured forever.
Chris studied the Sledgehammer and recorded its marks many times over until he could generate the right blow; making paint dance in this unique style.
Cans of latex house paint and fine grade acrylics are used to make large work in both an abstract and a pop-art style.
The Sledgehammer is a magnificent paint brush, it is delicate and clumsy; difficult to use but can deliver the most fascinating brush stroke and in the end what goes up must come down... on the canvas..
The technique is polar opposite of the Horsetail brush in Chinese Brush Painting, which Chris learned to control as a child; enduring lesson after lesson until he got it perfect.
A Bigger Splash
Today Chris throws paint around in all different ways, smearing it on the head of the hammer, dropping a glob onto the canvas first, sometimes he fills a small vessel with paint and slams down on that, some hammer loads look like a cartoon birthday cake with all colors of icing before it is slammed down.
His paintings attract people who are looking for authenticity. Each one is a miniature explosion that was captured using an acrylic polymer to record. It is fascinating to look closely and see that an arm of paint has spiraled around in the air 8-9 times twisting two colors together before it landed back on the canvas, it's fun to see how the paint jumps from the center explosion and creates small islands of bare canvas or "non-paint" near and around the parameter of the middle of the expanse series color schemes.
It's interesting to see all variations of color and the combinations which are created from the force, patterns that paint sometimes makes as it skips across the surface of the canvas, the indent in the cloth from the weight of the hammer, now and then breaking the fabric it pierces through to the wooden floor.
Often times the paint gets angry before settling; it bubbles and mixes in strange ways, other times the dried paint cracks like the floor of a desert adding a new level of weirdness to the aftermath of the explosion.
"I create paintings that are an endless source of inspiration, every time you look at one of these works you will notice something, a small nuance or intricacy that was not seen before, it will brighten up your day and become a resource of positive energy, it will fill you up."
"I hope you will see a starting point and maybe get a bit lost; I hope that you will dream."
A Whale Eye in the Universe
Through a collision I change the paints momentum from zero to some value given by its mass times its velocity; this causes an elastic expanse of paint like sunbeams to rise upward and outward from the center.
Eventually, its gravitational attraction returns as the weight of the paint pulls itself back towards earth and
It all lands in a crash...
Progression of the boarders stop as small pools develop; mixing of the pigments slows to nothing forming a stable equilibrium. The post-collision situation has no energy remaining.
It becomes a moment in time, a singularity; frozen forever on a quantum reference frame, ready for hanging
Bang Splash Paint | 53" x 54"
Latex and acrylic on canvas | 2019
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