Artist Statement

“Concepts of process and deconstruction have been central to my work since graduating from a BA in Fine Arts in 2000. In my work I like to accentuate the processes, and structures, bringing the unwanted to the fore, pushing the material, be it paint, plaster, concrete, deliberately playing with the drip or crack, the evidence of the makers hand, that makes it individual to me and unrepeatable even if I tried.

In the last few years my work has evolved into abstract figurative painting and although some of my work is evidently figurative it is the processes that contribute to the finished piece that are as important to me. I use reductive techniques, taking away not adding, stripping away layers or ‘unpainting’ to leave an exposed painting both in terms of the nude figurative image and in the processes and history in the making of the painting as an object.

Sequential layers of paint are applied to the canvas using sweeping brushstrokes which are only revealed when stripped down later to that layer. These layers are usually in restricted tones, they are painted heavily, they have sculptural elements, they appear hefty, each layer of paint is allowed to run and drip over the edges of the deep canvasses.

Once this process of applying the monochromatic layers of paint is complete, the ‘unpainting’ begins. The paint is eroded and dissolved in areas using sanders, scrapers, paint stripper. The areas are defined by a pre-selected figurative composition. I work from photographs I’ve taken from the model, photos taken with specific visual aims in mind. I use compositional cropping, sometimes reducing the image to sparse forms, essential components giving minimal clues to the viewer.

The reductive techniques used in the paintings are almost violent and destructive, sometimes erasing so heavily as to go right through to the bare canvass. But I aim to evolve it into something quite quiet and still, about capturing the period of time in the second of the models pose and of the physicality in the process of making the painting.

The space between abstraction and figuration changes for me. Using these methods I am able to highlight the sensory qualities of the paint and the markmaking. And I see myself being able to continue pushing these concepts constantly adjusting the balance between absence and presence.”

Dan Dunne

June 2010