Research: Artist Working with Sculpture, Metals and Painting

I have become fascinated with working with 2D and 3D, and mixing the mediums of sculpture and painting, and metals.

Currently, using metal / mild steel as my 'canvas' for imagery I feel is quite unique and no one else seems to be doing it right now. I decided to research some artists to see how they use metal in their paintings, or if anyone is working in ways similar to me.

Saatchi Art Online:

Purple Rain Painting by Cindy Avroch, silver leaf, Painting: Acrylic and Metal on Aluminium, Canvas and Other.

• Here Avroch uses Silver Metal Leaf and Acrylic on Canvas. It creates a metallic glistening approach and creates intricate details within the canvas. 

Reflections:

• These are obviously quite commercial pieces of artworks, rather than conceptual, which is also something interesting to consider. I am still sitting on the fence of this critique - to make work for a market and critique it at the same time, but I feel I have moved forwards with my work to fully focus on the making aspect of work, rather than concerns about an art's price or how it's perceived in a market. 
• I love the idea of combining metal and painting as metal is a very sculptural medium. 

Youtube Research: "Painting with Fire, Artist Mike Schneider

• In the video above, artist Mike Schneider created 3D metal art using heating and grinding techniques. 
• He states: "Any time that you cut or heat metal, there is a heat signature left along side it. And that heat signature is the colours that I try to produce in my art work. I try to use those colours like a canvas painter uses paint."
• This reminds me of my recent work with the mild steel and how I have been using heating and welding techniques to create intricate patterns and imagery. 

Mike Schneider 

https://www.mschneidermetalart.com 

Reflections:

• Mike Schneider was exactly the type of artist that I hoped I'd find through this research. This was really interesting to find someone who was equally as inspired by the discolouration left over by heating metal. 
• I really like his statements about what he calls the 'heat signature'. 
• Perhaps I could have a go at creating something more figurative as the welding heating technique I have adapted allows room for this, but I think I prefer the abstract patterns that connect more with the process. 

Further Artist Research from Youtube, Artist Jon Allen:

• Jon Allen is another artist who works with metal, using the metal itself as the canvas. 
• In the video he is seen using the hand grinder tool to put abstract marks in the sheet metal. 
• This has opened my eyes to new ways of working with sheet metal, and I could even try using the hand grinder tool (if Rob let's me use it as it's dangerous!). 
• Allen also makes his metal art into jewellery and describes this as the money making factor in his art which allowed him to make money to keep doing his other artworks. This is interesting as Jewellery is a commodity that seems to be sold easier and make more money.

Jon Allen

• He does individual sculptural pieces such as these twisted pieces of metal which look like they have been powder coated, and bolted onto a small plinth. 

Jon Allen, Aluminum

• A painting on metal spread over multiple metal sheets (or one that has been cut). This image has been given a pattern using the angle grinder machine, and then coated in some sort of colouring. 
• Allen's work is made from aluminium, which is a softer metal that cannot be welded, and no heat distortion shows up if you were to heat it (as I have experimented with aluminium before). Aluminium would be good for creating these surface patterns with the angle grinder, and then applying paint to in this way which could be a good experimentation point for the future. 
• "What interests me is the creation, the invention, the conception rather than the process. The process is a benefit of the creative conceptual process that leads you to that." - Allen
• Allen describes his process as 'in the moment' and not really thought out that much before hand, so to me it does seem very process led, and then in the video he says he's more conceptual than anything else and doesn't stick to once process too long.
• I think Jon Allen is the type of artist that doesn't really have any training in the arts and he doesn't seem to really know what he's talking about, but nevertheless his paintings sell. 

Tate's Definition of Metal:

"Metals can be hammered without breaking or cracking them in order to shape them, they can also be melted and used in moulds or made into wire and modelled – this makes them ideal media for sculptors to work with.

The use of bronze for making cast sculpture is very ancient, and bronze is perhaps the metal most traditionally thought of as a sculptural medium. From the early twentieth century, however, artists such as Pablo Picasso and the Russian constructivists began to explore the use of other metals, and Julio González introduced welded metal sculpture. The use of a range of metals and of industrial making techniques became widespread in minimal art and new generation sculpture for example." - Tate 2017.

• This page from Tate explains the use of metals for sculptors, and it seems that I have also adapted my use of metals for this reason. I use metal for its properties and the fact it can be made into a form. With stainless steel, it was too much about the surface that there was no form. I believe stainless steel is chosen purely for aesthetic and surface affect, but isn't something I can work with at this stage of my practice, so getting the form right using mild steel works a lot better. 
• Compared to Mike Schneider's art and this heat signature 

Further Research: 

•   Julio González, for welded metal. Gonzalez creates welded together sculptural forms which resemble actual objects for example the human figure. He does not use the welding process for heat distortion or creating patterns in the way that I do - just simply to weld the metals together. 
• Try angle grinder on aluminium and then paint it in the style of Jon Allen.

Further Studio Development: Adding silver leaf to my canvas:

Reflections:

• To complete this, I applied gilding glue into the 'voids' of the canvas - so the areas that you could still see the bare canvas underneath. I pressed the silver leaf into these voids using my fingers and concentrated the leaf accordingly to amount of canvas showing beneath. 
•  I think the silver leaf works aesthetically with the painting, and the idea to place the leaf into the 'voids' makes the painting appear abstract still, as the placement of the leaf wasn't planned, rather it happened. 
• Upon reflection, looking at this image it has almost formed a visually balanced image now, with the areas of light and dark, and it looks quite even in tone. 
• The silver leaf also adds a perceived monetary value to the piece, and comments on consumerism. Applying this has also made me realise that the themes of capitalism and consumerism are still relevant to my practice, and rather show through these more subtle threads in my work. 
• The positioning with the aluminium really works underneath this image now, the colours compliment each other and draw attention to one another. 
• Overall, I enjoy this image as a work of art on its own, and I'm not sure if it would work being the image underneath my other mild steel cut out piece. 
• Peer Feedback: - "it works, and it needs more silver leaf".