PAINTINGS
2014-2015

My work seeks to capture environments in flux.

One series in my multi-media practice is sprayed oil on canvas. Each piece is worked horizontally – sprayed directionally to control texture and layered to control translucence. The image changes as the viewer alters point of view. This complex approach creates a disorienting, amorphous surface, an uncanny effect. The recent work is a direct response to movement in the sky – to memories of breaking through cloud cover in a single-engine plane – to seeing cirrus and the big fat cumulous clouds – tantalizingly gorgeous, disarming and dangerous.

The paintings range in size from five inches square to four feet by twenty-one and one half feet. Some are single-canvas, others are diptychs, triptychs, polyptychs. The final surface may include two hundred layers. The surface build-up controls the bounce of light across the canvas. In lighting the work I have moved to using LEDs with specific Kelvin ratings; they become part of the medium, helping to control what the viewer sees.

My paintings and 2-D work present a response, an internalized perception of a day, series of moments, or event. I often title pieces with the date they are completed, because they really are a product of my interpretation of that particular, evolving day - its light, the weather, my mood... Patience, awareness, and responsiveness to the environment have always been central to my process.

– Madelin Coit, 2015