Moment # 2

15.03.2011/  ongoing painting performance/  acrylic on found painting/  central saint martins college of art and design - charing cross road - cafeteria

‘Moment #...’

This project is an examination of the experience of time through painting for the artist and the viewer.
A portrait painting of a nameless man from the past is given the gift /present of presence.
The background of the portrait painting is repainted mimetically to match it to the surface of the wall on which the painting hangs. The painting is moved to different sites as each adjustment to the new location is an act of recontextualisation of the painting to its new surrounding.
The decision where and when to move the painting is developed out of the process of the project itself and not fixed a priori. It is informed and influenced by the immediate surroundings that the painter, painting finds herself in. The path the painting will take constantly changes through the performative nature of the project.
The indexical over-painting of the background shifts the nameless man from the past into the present. The state of final completion of the painting is endlessly deferred and brought back into the process of becoming. It becomes a painterly visualised event. Through the repetition of this process the visualised moments build up painted layers of time. Each new background overlays the previous one transforming it into memory. The duration of this project is ongoing and endless.