This work is sold but please get in touch to commission similar.
The lockdowns resulting from Covid in the UK and elsewhere had and continue to have many terrible effects. A silver lining and one of the rare good things to happen as a result was I had many less distractions and therefore more time to paint.....and that's always welcome :)
This work was made to commission during the full first lockdown for a London client and I really enjoyed creating it for him, the lockdown lending the making and the work an even more intense feel than usual.
The title is from the anxiety of watching the trajectory curve of the virus rising and whether it would ever stop or was set to complete a never ending circle of lockdowns and new varients.....the jury may still be out on that?
Inspired by microscopic images of the virus ( which are really quite beautiful) I translated what I saw into colours and lines to represent the infinite possibilities within the virus.
In different lighting, daylight, artificial, sunlight, low light, this painting speaks a different language in each, sometimes blinging and zinging with reflected twinkles and glitterings.Other times more muted with hints of shimmer and shine between the pools of mat deepest green velvety darkness.
It is is a heavily worked painting that has many many subtle layers going on at every level which are not visible without closer inspection. I use the glitters and metallics as a seduction to draw the eye in to see these details, to understand the depth of the work.
The marks have been applied, layer after layer with a brush but also by dragging an iron nail and other implements through the paint to make the marks and depth. The aggression and violence of some of the marks contrast with the more painterly smooth graduations and the velvet surface.
I am fascinated by the similarities in nature that exist between an image of a nebula, a virus, a cell, a universe, a flower, geometry, fractals etc wand they give me a recurring motif usually a circle, as a symbol, a signifier, a switch, that turns the work into whatever the viewer is open to see.
This work is marked on the back with the following:
Signature
Text: Sand Laurenson MA(RA)
Date: 2020
Title: The Curve