This series came about because a student assistant had mistakenly mixed up too much paint. They kept adding more and more paint together in an effort to get a different color. In the end the student abandoned the attempt and left a half gallon of this color setting on the mixing table unused. Me, being the studio manager, not wanting to discard the large amount of paint, set it aside hoping another project might come along where that paint might be useful. The color. of the paint paint reminded me of Renoir or  Fragonard in a very generic way.

Thinking that the color reminded me of caucasian skin tone, I wondered if I could use it that way. First I tried to experimented with painting a figure. However the paint did not mix well with other paints. And I just wasn't finding anything with that approach that ultimately interested me. Working with some photographs I had taken that had been enlarged. I became interested in the abstract forms that the human body. While not necessarily identifying any particular area of the body. The resulting images became abstracted landscapes of sorts in my mind. The tone of the paint reinforces the essence and further references the human form.

I used laser ink print transfer to add the photographic forms. I set the flesh tone against a dark background. Letting the two colors blend together and merge with the phototransfer. The resulting image reminds me of the wet plate photographic process. 

All images are 8.5”x 11” latex paint on panel. 2024.