Skin-Flick

Skin-Flick is the latest canvas I have been working on. Its a large figurative piece, 300cm x 100cm, which I have grounded on canvas. I deliberately used an old canvas, which I painted over, as after scraping away the remains of the previous work, the residue left enough texture on the surface of the ground to give the impression of flaking & bumpy skin.

I used a plain black background, without any feature, as this focusses the viewer's attention onto the figure itself, without distraction, and the body seems to hang in space unsupported, which also helps to increase the prominence of the foreground figure, especially as the dimension of the work is almost life-size.

 

 

In the work I have made use of collage elements to replace body parts, as is typical of my practice. In this case I replaced the head with an image of a television set, and a leg with an antique water pump. The shape of the figure is distorted almost beyond recognition, with indeterminate bumps across the surface of the body.

Here's the sketch which began it all