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| Seeking Resolution by Mars Woodhill |
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| Polished Agate |
You will undoubtedly find color combinations that attract you in Mars Woodhill’s paintings on display at Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen, TX. I was immediately reminded of polished agate stones with their beautiful striations of color. I was also reminded of carnival spin art. British artist Damien Hirst transformed the lowly technique of carnival spin art to high art in his spin painting series. Well, that's debatable I suppose!
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| Beautiful by Damien Hirst |
I wouldn’t classify Woodhill’s work as a spin painting, but the dynamic of motion is required to achieve the effect of fluidity in the work. The term for this is “fluid painting.” Woodhill states that they are created by varying the viscosity of the paint. She won’t divulge specific technical information about her technique, but the technique is not new. I came across an artist at a show in Phoenix, AZ about 20 years ago, who was utilizing the same kind of technique with the same effect. He wouldn’t divulge either.
I have my own idea about how it is done. Paint pigments are different sizes molecularly, and the water and the pigment act as resists to each other, creating the striations. The word “resist” is used in art to designate something that acts as a barrier. Did you know that plain old water acts as a resist? I watched a youtube video on Turkish marbling that exhibits this tendency a few days ago. There are fissures in Woodhill’s surfaces, a look that can be achieved using Golden’s crackle paste medium. Similarly there are thinning mediums that can be added to paint.
This work isn’t original conceptually or aesthetically, but Woodhill has mastered her medium. You can see this development if you compare her 2009 paintings to the 2012 work on her website. The work relies upon the formal elements of color, pattern, line, texture and movement, and all those elements are manipulated effectively to achieve an interesting and pleasing result.
Quinta Mazatlan, 600 Sunset Dr., McAllen, Texas, 956 681 3370, www.quintamazatlan.com