House Paint Series process

Every year I go through the paint closet and weed out old cans of paint that can’t be used or salvaged. I use a lot of house paint to paint theater sets so it is necessary to periodically go through the shelves checking the paint cans for expired paint. As the opened cans of paint age, they can dry out, separate, or even develop mold. If the paint is still liquid but unusable the can is filled with sawdust to fully dry it out before being tossed. I began to feel that perhaps I could find a better use for this stuff.  .

The collection of random cans of paint colors 

My palet has been limited by what paint is expired and saved from the trash.

Moldy separated yellow paint. 

Occurring parallel in the theater scene shop we use thin plywood called  luan. Working with his material  also produces a fair amount of waste and off cuts. I brought together these two waste products and repurposed them into artwork.

A number of wet panels drying on the studio floor

My process became trimming the luan plywood into uniform dimensional panels. Then spooning paint across the top edge and using a wide pallet knife like a squeegee pull the paint across the panel. Often I spoon on a couple of colors and let them combine and mix in a random way as they are squeezed across the surface. Each successive scrape of the knife further blends the layer of wet paint together and simultaneously reveals lower layers of dried paint underneath. 

The painting is set aside to dry where after another layer of paint in a complementary color is added in a similar possess. I repeat this process over and over. Adding paint then scraping it way.

The choice of working with the medium of discarded house paint is a direct reference to my Father’s scientific work. He worked for the Food and Drug administration where he invented and patented a quick and easy chemical process to determine the presence of dangerous levels of lead in house paint. His lead detection kits are still widely used because they are so simple and accurate. My process of layering paint alludes to the countless times interior walls are repainted in Brooklyn apartments. Often dangerous lead paint remains on walls hiding under many layers of paint that have been applied in the years since lead house paint was banned.