Pytolacca by Max Barnes

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Medium: Mixed media on canvas
Dimensions (H/W/D): 100 by 100 by 3 cm.
Year made: 2006
Framed: Unframed

My work has been recently centred on the unearthing of the female form. An assortment of media is built up on the canvas in order to lose the imposed figurative image that has been laid down in relief with a material called caulk. The canvas is then turned and re-stretched on the reverse to unveil a found image for the first time. It has been born from the paint and exposed as a side affect of the excavation process and is a result of the time spent working on the other side. More recently there has been an introduction of a range of glazes that become a way to seal the paint behind the surface, as if the image has been preserved (or frozen) at a particular point. These various processes take control and present a painting that is a product of weaving in and out of discovery and ambiguity.

The poses are intentionally chosen to present a personally close, intimate and or vulnerable moment. The figure is asleep, without expression or character, stripped by unconsciousness, metaphorically and literally naked. These aspects of the image become an access point; they help to include the viewer, as if they were actually there. The experience of viewing can be comfortable or uncomfortable. Almost like an unveiling of two people to each other, when engaging in a sexual act, even similar to the probable unearthing of a relic from an archaeological dig, it is a sensitive thing.

The figure begins to act as a metaphor for discovery. The ambiguity of the subject can actually be more rewarding than knowing the truth. I try to play on the anticipations and expectations of the observer as in an archaeological dig where discoveries are uncertain. Things that are often handed on a plate to us are often less exciting than letting our own natural assumptions exist in a world of their own, we are then left with a sense of hope or dismay. I am interested in painting and installation as an organic entity that evolves and re-evolves presenting my viewer with a document from which to draw a conclusion. Work that discovers and hides and does not deliver things forcefully, ultimately leaving things undistinguished, unsaid, partially revealed and suggested.