Free Your Painting

“Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and... stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to 'walk about' into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?” Kandinsky.

Aimed at the painter, fine art student or individual who employs paint as part of their wider creative practice (i.e. design, architecture). The course offers a chance to stretch your understanding and abilities of rendering materials, tints, splatters and pigment while testing what it is to paint amongst our current, expanded realms of painting.

Practical, hands-on (group and individual) exercises will kick start the course, e.g., effecting pigment, use of grounds, surface and layering with new possibilities for handling and applying materials. Experimentation will invite participants to further examine paintings’ traits: colour and light; shape and line; space and scale; surface and spatial depth; illusion, allusion and expression.

Over the two week period, artist Alex Roberts will provide a platform that collaboratively exposes new modes of agency, materials, extends technical skills; expanding current methodologies and experience – facilitating a painting exchange. Participants will be given the chance to view the exclusive collections in the Zeitgenössiche Kunst, Neues Museum Weimar, and receive a series of presentations, and discourse about contemporary painting. The play with materials, rethinking of processes will be accompanied by critique, culminating with open ateliers to share identified findings.