I'd like to share a few words about my acrylic paintings!
They are my beloved babies, i tailored this technique of double-faced (viewable both in sunlight and uv light) paintings first for my master's thesis in painting. My aim was to make large, yet slim canvases for my graduation thesis that would transmit my fascination with the saturated, digital colours of displays in art, and to find a way to reproduce such effect in traditional painting. The end format I chose was 60x120cm (23x46inch) and i really fell in love with it!!
I decided to go with fluorescent acrylic paintings, which in ultraviolet light shine with neon brilliance, a perfect effect for my digital canvas idea!! While working with them, I thought it would be fun to make these works to make sense both in UV and sunlight, to make best use of both effects these beautiful colours can give. And so I did! For that, I use both matte, non-fluorescent acrylic paints as well as fluorescent and mix them with eachother until I achieve desirable hue and density of shine under the UV light and sunlight alike. So i keep alternating between the two often as I paint!! Sometimes it's a drag because as soon as i found the PERFECT colour under the uv light, when i switch it back to sunlight it looks like SHIT...........sdfsdfsdf
these big acrylic paintings take me somewhere around 80-100 hours for a 60x120cm one, they are quite a long and structured process! I do all the steps myself from the beginning, which is working with raw fabric, cutting, preparing and stretching it on a support, which takes around 3 hours. The sketching is somewhere between 3 to 5 hours, and the rest is laying shape after shape after shape, covering the surface with base colours first and then slowly detailing up.
I am not mixing my own paint yet, although I would love to experiment more with texture and thickness of paint.
As I mentioned, spending quite some time with these larger format UV paintings, I develop quite an intimate relationship with them as i work! They are quite special to me, and the athmosphere under the UV lights adds to it greatly. Getting to touch, weave, lay and manipulate these intense hues into my favourite shapes in otherwise darkness makes me feel like a digital witch brewing their potion, and I hope anyone who sees my paintings will perceive that same enthrall with colours and shapes as me <3
below i put the whole documentation of a 30x45cm painting! i photographed mostly after every major painting session. enjoy <3