The Unlikely Chance
The image in the middle came about when I was making the image on the left. The one on the left is the backside of the plexiglass; it’s what shows through after applying frontside brushstrokes. In ways I only now understand, the middle one is more interesting. But that version is now gone. The way I work, it was never intended to be seen. It was always intended to be sandwiched between the backside of the plexiglass and the original paint skin that I will adhere to the frontside (which is the one on the right). It was nothing but something that appeared in the middle process of creating a double-sided painting.
When I finish and you are holding the painting in your hand, you will see the right-side version on the surface, and when you turn it around, you’ll see the left-side coming through the transparent plexiglass. But the center version you will only ever see in this photo, and it makes me want to go and make a dozen of them on frontside-intended paint skins so that I can also have it. Why a dozen, one might ask. A dozen is the minimum! I would need to make a dozen because I would need to recreate it under the auspices of spontaneity; this type of painting only works if it were tossed off, and a dozen attempts might give me the desired look one of those times. And it might not. Because spontaneity is more like throwing dice than deliberately moving pieces.
Another way to look at this is that the one-of-a-kind look has already happened, and it is now buried under another image, with no hope of ever coming back — but I’m going to try it anyway. Because that is what I do, follow the path of most resistance.