What guides poetic thinking is the conviction that although the living is subject to the ruin of time, the process of decay is at the same time a process of crystallization, that in the depth of the sea, into which sinks and is dissolved what once was alive, some things "suffer a sea-change" and survive in new crystallized forms and shapes that remain immune to the elements, as though they waited only for the pearl diver who one day will come down to them and bring them up into the world of the living....
Hannah Arendt From The Artificial Kingdom - A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience by Celeste Olalquiaga
Notes about my painting process
There is a temporality that permeates this body of work. My use of aquarelle with a combination of natural resin and acrylic binder on gesso panels has enabled me to create thin layers, glazes and washes. There is a freedom using water in comparison with oils, the flow is less toxic on inhalation and on my hands. The paintings have an impermanent quality. They are fibrous in nature, biological, delicate. They require protection from sunlight or they will fade. The resin as it dries out over time may become brittle, creating unexpected patterns and craquelure across the surface, accelerated by varying environmental conditions. For me, this transient quality, observing how the paintings may change over time, is embraced and understood as part of their poetry. The question of their display, framing devices, aging and care, has grown to be of conceptual interest to me within the work itself.
© 2021 Louise Ward Studio