These evolved from my ongoing study of Matisse including his late “Cut-out” works (and in particular the hand-painted-on-paper colour cut-outs, arranged on walls in various studios Matisse had). The first step I took was to paint an illusion of cut-outs arranged on walls. Then I painted cut-out-like shapes on wood panels with thick, conspicuous paint – thick oils applied with a large brush to add light-reflecting profiles. The resulting panels were something like cut-outs on (smaller sections of) walls. With some I have stopped at that. But with others of these, due to the conspicuous shapes acting a bit like objects (like Matisse’s cut-outs) I felt the picture would interact well with objects and operate as a collage or mixed-media painting.
Neil Kathol Visual Art 