Original artwork description:

This is one of Robert Dunt's "Distortion Form" paintings which are inspired by music, and in particular the band the Jesus and Mary Chain. Robert was influenced by paintings that explored colour such as the works by the artist Partick Heron who worked prominently in the 1970s. But he did not just want to recreate these paintings and so began looking at a way of using colour in a more contemporary context.

The Jesus and Mary Chain wrote pretty "Beach Boys" like pop songs but then covered them with noise and distortion and feedback. In a similar fashion Robert painted pretty "Patrick Heron" like paintings and then covered them with black and white "Distortion Forms", a visual metaphor for the noise and distortion used by the Jesus and Mary Chain.

Though inspired by music these paintings are firmly rooted in the visual, and work on making original colour combinations. The paintings also reference the act of seeing, the freneticism of some sections of the paintings referencing visual experiences such as looking at, and through, the branches of tress as they shake in the wind. Like all Robert's paintings the aim is to give the viewer greater visual pleasure of the the world and the colours they see in it.

This colours in this painting were inspired by one of Picasso's paintings referencing Las Meninas where he used a reduced palette of greens, yellows, red and off white earth colours.

Technically the painting references cubism in its construction. The underlying structure has the broken elements of a picture plane that has been distorted by cubism. The overlaying colours and Distortion Forms then add to this creating a fluctuating sense of depth, created both by the colours in the painting, which have a depth of their own, and the layering of the different levels of the painting, finishing with the Distortion Forms on the top.

Materials used:

oil on canvas

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