The Differences Between Traditional and Freed Painting
Firstly, for the purposes of this essay, I define a “painting” as paint and an application surface. Secondly, this essay is not intended to be a debate over which artistic approach is better, rather, it is intended to present new opportunities that Freed Painting offers the artist and viewers.
- By taking paint off the two-dimensional (canvas) surface and projecting it out into three-dimensional space, a fundamental shift happens. A quality of physical depth and dimension is inherent in Freed paintings that Traditional paintings cannot possess. Personally, I find this physical reality freeing and believe that Freed paintings possess and exude a sense of liberation that Traditional paintings cannot express. For the viewer, a new visual experience opens to them. It is possible to walk around a Freed painting, appreciating paint suspended, almost levitating in open space. Paint has an opportunity to express its own identity for the first time.
- Freed painting offers the artist the opportunity to work with transparency. In Traditional painting you have DaVinci’s Sfumato process where layers of imperceptible color are built up to shape the lips of the Mona Lisa, giving her that enigmatic smile. Magnificent, no doubt, but we don’t get to appreciate the veils of color on their own. With Freed painting, you can. It is possible to produce transparent strands and sheets possessing hints of color. The viewer can examine color density and the interplay between hues and values in a new way. Again, the ability to access Freed paintings in a much broader way allows viewers visual perspectives not previously available to them.
It is my opinion that Freed Painting expands the field of Fine Art Painting in groundbreaking ways.
