Fingerpaintings

Fingerpainting is a sheer and primal act of creation: wetting one’s fingers with paint, then smearing the paint on a surface. There is an immediacy, an urgency and a carelessness to it that few other type of paintings can achieve. Rational thought takes a backseat to emotion and impulse, and the composition is fragile and delicate. I produced a series of fingerpaintings around 2010. In a digital technique: I dipped my fingers in ink, then made marks on paper. I scanned the strokes into the computer, enlarged them to huge sizes, then printed out the results on canvas. This new work is done directly on the canvas with a custom glove I made that approximates a human finger. It has the same immediacy and expressiveness as the original finger soaked in ink. The same jagged strokes. It is fingerpainting writ large. I'm very happy with the result.