Dripping paint on a canvas conveys the feeling of immediacy and urgency, doesn’t it. It’s as if you were standing next to the artist while she was painting and you were witnessing the physicality of this gooey substance in its tug with gravity.
Now, paint drips down, not up. I say that, because we often turn a canvas upside-down to see if that view will work better or, at least, what the new view will teach us. When a drip is seen upside-down, it may work and it may not. If the dripping paint is thick, it most often will look disturbing when seen upside down. If the dripping paint is highly diluted and therefore thin, it will run down fast and in a fairly straight line all the way to the bottom edge of the canvas. It will read primarily as a straight line and only on closer inspection will you see that it’s actually a drip. It will read as a straight line even when the canvas is turned upside-down.
This kind of double take tickles the mind.
The brushstrokes and color blotches look random. And, certainly, the drips by their very nature are random. But notice, the composition is severely rectilinear. Notice also, that in the painting process the canvas was rotated more than once: sideways drips. It’s the coexistence of this grid effect with the drippy-splashy-rubbing paint that makes for deep drama. We like drama.
The drips obeying gravity—as they were created in the first place—look less exiting. Or do they?
Veronica Sax, painting in acrylic on canvas, 30” x 30,” November 2016
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artamaze by Katherine Hilden 