Blue Liquid Painting by Mark Chadwick

My art practice is concerned by the use of machines in the production of an artwork. With our culture becoming more and more engaged with new technologies, my work questions the implications of handing over control of an artwork to a mechanical device. With the actions of any machine the result of human intention, I use machines to allow chance to enter the creative process, exploring ideas surrounding authorship, consciousness and interaction. I allow my tools to create their marks and record its action in a physical way on to the canvas. Currently my work is concerned with painting process as the performance aspect of the production of an artwork, exploring the relationship forged between materials, aesthetics and perception across cultures. I use machines/technology to allow paintings to make themselves in order to further remove the hand of the artist. Once set in motion I often remove myself from the studio and painting process. In my current series of fluid paintings, the paint is manipulated in a number of different ways each driven by ideas surrounding process, materiality and chance encounters. The unique display of forms and colours are brought together by the artist’s hand but manipulated though the use of machines or natures forces. Some paintings are spun or shaken while others rely upon reactions between materials or gravity to allow the painting to almost form itself. The paintings are built up of many layers of paint, each creating it’s own flowing abstract surface left open to interpretation by the viewer.

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