This Thing Covid – abstract acrylic painting

This Thing Covid - abstract acrylic painting

This Thing Covid is an abstract geometric painting that references the frustration I feel towards the COVID-19 restrictions and regulations. Even though I am up-to-date with all my jabs, and I have already had Covid anyway; I still get forced to wear a mask on public transport. What is the logic? Most people ignore the warnings. You don’t have to wear a mask in the shopping centre, or at a music festival, or at a sports event, yet the crowds are far greater – go figure? Anyway, I recently painted 3 small geometric paintings using a square grid, and then created triangles within the squares. It is a long and delicate process to paint with such sharp, neat edges but the finished artworks were stunning. So I decided to paint a large ‘square’ painting and within some of the squares, I added symbols to indicate Covid-19 cells. This painting took so long to paint because I used metallic paint in every colour. I formulated my colours with artist-quality acrylic paint, then added acrylic painting medium. Once mixed, I then added either bronze, copper, gold or silver metallic paint to each colour. The added painting medium and metallic paints rendered the final colours slightly transparent, therefore most colours needed 3 coats of paint. Abstraction: Is not considered an accurate representation of the world around us. Basically, it uses colour, forms and gestural mark-making to convey the artist’s interpretation or vision. Abstraction is used to convey a story or evoke a feeling. There are a myriad of different ways to approach abstraction in painting and I have developed a few distinct or unique styles. Geometric shapes: this style is more about building patterns and colour combinations however I do like to covertly work a theme into the artwork sometimes. Because of my background in sign writing, I find this style of abstraction ‘fits’ with my identity, and I like to challenge myself with new concepts or approaches to my art.