Shawn Wallis
Gallery Affiliations: William Campbell Contemporary Art
Region: West
I've never painted anything other than monochromes. But the work is much more than a single layer of color. that and relies on layers and layers of reworked color to achieve a visually dynamic color field work that contains movement along with shifts and changes in color and light. The primary focus of my work, like that of many other painters within the color field movement of Concrete Painting, is color, light and surface, leaving the work to exist solely by itself. To achieve this, I work within a set of boundaries that I have set for myself and with a limited number of materials. It is all work that is done by hand, without the use of brushes or tubes of paint, where the hand of the artist is evident in every aspect of the painted surface. Combining elements of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, the paintings present a very formal front in shape, structure and preparation, but the finished ground and the application of the color is very much within the oeuvre of abstract expressionists. Close inspection reveals a painting ground that is obsessively worked but retains the marks of the artist's hand. Both the preparation and the application of pigment ignore the boundaries of the surface and subtly reference action painting. Each layer of color and light shifts with each subsequent addition of color until the desired results are achieved. A finished work is one that reveals something of its layers of color, movement and the gestures of its making.