In many of my earlier pieces I created the appearance of blemishes & other wounds on the skin of the figure, by careful use of shading & colour tones within the paint, to model a pimple or boil. However for some time I've wanted to craete the pustular lump itself, as a 3D extrusion from the surface of the ground itself. I was influenced by Robert Morris's Footnote to the Bride 1961, where a flesh-coloured rubber membrane is pushed very slowly forward from a wooden box by means of an unseen air pump. I wanted to achieve a similar effect, of a distended portion of "skin", which stands out distinct from the painting.
The pustules are created by first cutting out the hole in the canvas with a scalpel. I then cut out a small section of clear plastic, [taken from a plastic bag], which i pushed through the hole, forming the sack with my thumb, and testing it for size by sight. Once in place, the remainder of the plastic section was pushed down onto glue which I had laid down previously around the edges of the hole. Once the glue was dry, I filled each of the pustule sacs with vaseline, [the larger abscess sac had a small portion of yellow & red oil paint to simulate blood and pus placed in the bottom of the plastic prior to being filled with vaseline]. Once the sac was full of vaseline, I pressed a piece of glue covered cardboard down onto the rear surface of the canvas. This sealed the vaseline within the membrane, compressing it slightly, and pushing the whole mass outwards & making it taught. The surface of the canvas was then painted flesh colour, with added shades & blends to simulate the swelling & inflammation surrounding a wound. This small canvas was created as a means of testing the concept, & discovering the process for making 3D pustules for use on larger canvases.
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