My primary occupation is as a Software Engineer, and in that field “failure” is a term of art we like to obsess about and celebrate, for, it takes many failures to achieve every success, and it is by way of failure that all learning takes place. It is as Edison said, finding numerous ways not to make a lightbulb. I’m aware of the term “Magnificent Failure” being used within the domains of art, jazz, space exploration, and even some rather dark corporate humor striking within very close range of my own employment.
I’ve decided to smack the name to this artwork as, though it looks extremely impressive to the untrained eye, it unfortunately doesn’t meet many standards for composition and layout of an abstract painting; for details on the rules of composition, take an art class with Olga (more info here).
Magnificent Failure is a relatively large 24 x 36 inch experiment painted on what could be described as a “recovered marketing fixture”. Somebody in some marketing department suffered the humiliation of having their work painted over by another artist…but at least it didn’t end up in some landfill. Good canvas is good canvas, even if it comes printed with corporate advertising and requires a few coats of white acrylic gesso before use.
Creation of the complex effects seen in “Magnificent Failure” came by way of 10+ hours of repeated layering, pouring, scraping, adding, removing, wetting, and drying. The primary instrument used is a Colour Shaper tool, better known as the Rubber Brush; other tools used include conventional brushes and good old Kirkland Signature brand paper towels. For almost every operation of adding paint on this canvas, I also removed some; paper towel can be used while it is still wet, while rubbing alcohol can be used to rub into semi-dry paint and to create fancy bubble and run effects. Scratching effects are just that, created by vigorous abuse committed using the above mentioned tools.
After several Sunday afternoons messing around with this canvas, I lacked an obvious path to a correct composition other than to “kill it” with gesso and start over. I thought it looked too cool looking nevertheless, so I finished the edges and varnished it and took it safely home.
