Archaeology

Looks at both the archaeology and history of the painterly surface exploring both its destruction and rebirth. Many painters through history prepared their surface and painted them in a particular way to achieve the results they wanted, this management of the painting surface, subsequent preparation and finish results in uniquely individual painterly processes. The art of conservation is littered with overworked and failed attempts at trying to capture that uniqueness and this still happens today. Gino is concerned with how a contemporary perspective places its own aesthetic on a painting, he feels better archaeology into the individual painters process is paramount when looking at conserving. The loss of the painterly material of a painting can be a difficult to witness and the need to save and reclaim the original can be overly stressed. Archaeology will allow for less intrusive repairs, sympathetic cleaning and defer overpainting by a non original hand other than the artists.  A partial Velazsquez is always going to be better than a  unsympathetically restored Velasquez.

The other need to engage with the traces of pentimenti held beneath the layers of a paint to refashion the intention of the artist is perhaps archaeological in nature but for the artist is merely history. For the artist paintings evolve and the adjustments and decisions of the artist may be interesting to conservators and historians who can then reflect on these to propose their own ideas about the artists intentions and process. However in the final analysis they are not relevant to the finished painting because the artist has made the final decision by ever present analysis of their intentions, ideas, philosophy and aesthetic when compared to the finished painting.     

Surface Actions

The process of painting is a point of reference for many artists who epitomise the idea that paint is gestural and can be splashed, dripped, splattered, dribbled, smeared onto the painterly surface in a spontaneous way usually emphasising the physical act of painting. Perhaps the suggestion that it represents the physical act of painting enables those who actively engaged in this process to be termed avant garde. The reality however is that it didn't add to the internal language of painting which had for centuries engaged with all the physical and gestural techniques heralded as new.

Gino painted amalgamated sections of his studio floor which had accrued a variety of marks over the years, these paintings are observations of the unconscious reflex that is used in the painting process no matter be it figurative, abstract, physical, conceptual. Gino argues that paintings no matter the style or subject contain a contemporary viewpoint reaching back through history and offer a continual conversation when free from market concerns and mannerism..  The layering of paint represents the acrued knowledge of the past, present and future holding within it time, history, light and fragments of "truth".

Optical, Flats, Field, Data

AI, Digital, Aluminium, Acrylic

Digital painting and AI offers much with possibilities which are usually framed by the surface and spatial possibilities. Existing within a variety of platforms as a piece of data it is neither physical nor tangible. It can be produced in many formats using a variety of outputs, printing tends to be the most used. When printing the technologies available offer very few surface possibilities and this can limit any creative expression, but if these factors are grasped it is a data medium which can generate some interesting approaches to painting usually as a barrier art form which can create visually innovative images. Its limitations when taking a minimal approach can be a plus but overall its surface potential restricts further transformation mainly because it lacks any feel of the human touch.and individual expression.

It can copy, reorder, store reassemble and procreate visual disorders as a party trick but a sentient internal and external creativity from a singular determinant is still not there.    

Vortex of Fragments

Particles Matter

Paintings are objects that occupy space they have mass can be solid, liquid, formed of tiny particles called atoms and molecules. Particles in a solid are close to and attracted to each other, they vibrate but don't move past one another.

When using paint it is clear the chemical process harnesses liquid (medium) as a vehicle to suspend pigment, allowing motility and time for the paint to dry and set. The Characteristics of paint is determined by the medium it is suspended in. Viscosity (how thick)  drying time, how two substances mix with each other (miscibility) and how easily two substances mix with each other to form a solution (solubility) i.e oil paint mixed with a solvent.  The chemistry of paint is such that it is susceptible to an array of changes when drying due the fluid mediums used in their making.