Untitled (Depth is as good as range)

BACKGROUND Depth is as good as Range, was a wall work exhibited in the group painting show Depthless Flatness curated by Steven Rendall and Bryan Spier. In this work I was exploring the minimum conditions for a painting to exist. CONTRIBUTION The painting incorporated the whole of the existing wall into the composition, obscuring the peripheries of the painting. Daylight permitted a fuller, more complete, viewing of the work with all its subtleties. The use of white glosses, enamels, sanding back of sections of the wall and layers of white on whites, allowed the work to appear to radiate light. In fact the work projected light back into the space, by reflection and in this way this work created its own sense of atmosphere. SIGNIFICANCE In contrast to the other works in the group show, which asserted their solidity and mass in comparison, this work manifested a space of light. At night, as the amount of light was restricted, it took some time for a viewer's eyes to adjust to the image. This effect introduced a striking temporal element to the work, besides the transitory nature of the painting itself, which only lasted as long as the exhibition. This work is the subject of a book chapter to be published by Edinburgh University Press in late 2017 (Practising with Deleuze). This book chapter continues to develop my innovative study of the surfaces of painting and locates this study in a critical historical context.