Exploration of Mixed-Media

This is an older painting in the mixed-media category, painted with tempera paint (gouache) after the application of layers of corrugated board mounted on wallboard. A few days ago I posted a small watercolor painting with these four women in it, painted in cool tones. Later I developed it into this painting on a larger scale. Probably if you enlarge it by clicking on it, you will be able to see the areas better where other types of board were mounted to express greater dimension.

Since I was already acquainted with Picasso's work by the time in my life that I worked on this, I'm sure there were subconscious references to the nudes that kicked off some of the directions in Cubism. Those grew out of Picasso's familiarity with African masks and sculpture. It gave him a fresh way to perceive the world and to express his imagery. After all, our mind endlessly stores images we encounter . They are filtered through our brain and come out altered at some later time. We are a collection of all the visual stimuli we have been exposed to over the years, which then becomes an addition to and an influence on our personal working vocabulary.

I did love working this out at the time. Playing with varied materials has always been exploratory for me, and an entertaining source of new thinking leading to new solutions.
By adding a third dimension to my painting, especially with a textural material such as corrugation, I am thinking in tactile terms, as well as visual ones. The plot thickens, an I am immersed in many layers of creative thinking. It is a dynamic experience, enriching the process of painting.