Adrenaline Rush

ADRENALINE RUSH

My latest works are of acrylics and mixed media on canvas + paper. They include luminous geometric forms set in tangential planes that shift and slide over the surface. They move like asteroids interfaced by basic forms that cut into one another appearing and disappearing as multiple washes give them momentum. Forms are worked in translucent layers that involve many techniques that succeed in merging and separating colour, volume, line and texture of architectonic rhythm. These tilting planes collectively build a matrix that is meant to capture strong dimensions in compositions to achieve depth growing in its ability to exploit the Modernist tension between the material reality of painting and the imaginary space beyond the picture frame. Embedded within are the abstract idiom references to local histories, while adapting them to accommodate a personal obsession for relentless experimentation – A bright palette, splashes of paint and a unique technique from being spontaneous and free flowing, yet structured. The rich earth chromatic tones touched by an inner luminosity dominate my larger canvases. They are coloured with vibrancy and are set against jewel tones- rust oranges and indigos surrounded by swathes of inky black and smoldering reds.

My work is landscape based and inspired mostly by my travels all over the world. My works are an accidental experimentation of impulsive processes. The use of material and stencils, to imprint their textures on canvas, was a discovery that deserved to be used or rather reused, and developed so that the artworks could have a ‘life’ of their own. It so happened that after smearing papers with paint and imprinting their textures on canvas, I took them up again to cut, paste, mix and match them. Subconsciously, I create dimensions with paint. I use techniques such as pasting strips of paper, or slivers of dried paint to create these artworks. I manipulate colours with contrasting splashes of colour with areas that are enhanced with gold and silver leaf. My strategies include diverse materials that are strung together and tightly held, in earthy, coherent compositions. Exploring materials within a frame allows me to bend the rules within my own metaphysical confines. There is connectivity between each of the works. … Yet they differ from each other. My latest works can be interpreted as a new phase wherein my preoccupations are now based on principles of the abstract. Form loses its outline in her landscapes. Nature asserts its presence through vestigial lines – as a straight line, an angle, an arc or an ellipse, or through other geometrical devices.

It is apt, that my paintings with their new approach are showcased under the title ‘Adrenaline Rush’. Clearly, my paintings with their conscious denial of form, their preoccupations with colour, particularly in their strong textural as well as aesthetic values, are seen as more than abstract landscapes. With this new body of work, it is somewhat self-evident that I wish to wrestle with the basic tool-bar of painterly options. I let the rigid make peace with the fluid, actively overlaying drips and strips in a bid to find order within a space of a self-inflicted chaos. It is a bit like letting loose a spell of chromatic hooliganism and then administering the same with another fierce round of chromatic governance; as the playful artist of this painterly unrest, I eventually restore the law and order on the canvas.

My busy multitasking life is reflected in the way I paint. There is a certain excitement, as well as a touch of anxiousness that drives me to work. I believe that my involvement in diverse art related activities have me paint several paintings at a time. I believe I have crossed another hurdle in my quest through an uncharted discovery of myself.

-Brinda Miller