A quest to find new and interesting materials in my own art practice led me to consider what other contemporary artists have been using as alternatives to canvas and linen. In this post, I look at the recent work of Claire Tabouret and Issy Wood, who have organised shows (and, for Issy, her oeuvre) around such materials.
I used to think that anything other than canvas or linen was a bit gimmicky, but I've seen some startling examples using other surfaces and they made me rethink this position.
A faux fur painting by Claire Tabouret from Paysages d’intérieurs at Perrotin in 2021.
Claire Tabouret
Known for her nostalgic, dream-like portraits using washes of acrylic on canvas, in 2021 Claire first revealed a series of landscape painted on coloured synthetic faux-fur. Much like the neon colours used as the priming layer of her canvas works, Claire used bright hairy fur as the support for these landscape paintings. She described the feeling of working on these paintings as "trying to move in really deep snow", because of the resistance offered by the material to each stroke.
Claire explains how adopting the fur required a change in her painting technique. Blending colours on the surface is basically impossible. Instead, each colour has to be applied with one, intentional and direct brushstroke. The force, shape and length of each stroke produces a different texture within the fur itself – the harder the pressure, the more that the paint would sink into the surface and collapse the hair strands; softer strokes would instead float in the fur.
These landscapes were first presented at Perrotin in 2021 in a show called Paysages d’intérieurs ('Interior landscapes'). Tabouret has always been able to achieve expression in her portraits with an economy of brushwork, and these fur paintings are an extension of that philosophy. They are decidedly abstract and low-resolution, out of necessity dictated by the choice of material.
This is not her only foray with unconventional materials – her 2019 show, If only the sea could sleep, at Le Hangar à Bananes in Nantes, featured paintings on reclaimed boat sails that were stained from years of use.
Issy Wood
Issy's paintings, frequently now at auction, use velvet fabric as the support.
The use of velvet as a painting surface is more than just stylistic in Wood's work, her paintings often feature cropped images of clothing items, which - when rendered on velvet - become "a sort of joke with myself about painting, alluding to painting a fabric on a different fabric – it has an uncanniness to it".
Painting on velvet is well-established historically, being used originally for the painting of religious iconography, and then popularised again in the 1970s, especially using dark or black velvet as the support. It is known to provide depth and contrast to the painted elements, although at this time they had a kitsch association to it. Issy has elevated the fabric out of the sphere of bad taste. She is "always keenly aware of how luxurious velvet is".
Concluding remarks
I just decided to focus on two artists here, but there are many examples of different materials being used as supports, from Julie Mehretu's use of mylar (a milky white translucent sheet that is reminiscent of architectural plans), Keith Haring's works on burlap, tarp and muslin, Basquiat painting on everything etc.
Despite the differences in technique that these different materials require, another consideration is their archival value. Canvas and linen have well understood properties, whereas the long-term behaviour of material like faux fur (and its interaction with paint) is completely unknown. Works should be constructed with a consideration that pigment may leach from the surface into the paint layer itself, or may degrade over time. But I guess this is all part of the fun of painting.
Meanwhile, my swatches from Fabrics Online have arrived and I'm off to see how they respond to a bunch of different paints.
George
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