Thin coatings: the whiff of essence
To make the mood dramatically rendered in the atmosphere, the background of my work is always an ambiguous patch of colour. I use thin layers of paint, layered over large areas. I also love the way the layers of colour intertwine and soak into each other, creating a visually intimate connection. The pigments mix with the medium to create a watercolour-like texture, with a strong physicality and uncertainty, fragility and interweaving. The unbridled flow, not controlled purely by artifice, 'producing dynamic, confident brushstrokes in unpredictable colours, and displaying a vigorous freedom of expression', gives the colours a gesture of dominance, where everything flows in a gliding motion of change.
Helen Frankenthaler
The painting is made by pouring diluted paint directly onto an unprimed canvas, creating a water-like floating sensation. The colours are permeated by the canvas - they are painted in the canvas rather than on it. She describes her paintings as having a lot of randomness, with the colours choosing to be where they are supposed to be. The paint bleeds into each other, showing a moment of bloom in the sense of unfinishedness.
Mountains and Sea（1952）
Marlene Dumas
Dumas's empathy and sensitive paintings speak universal truths about female oppression, her portraiture always shunned formal gesture, in favour of an inked, unbridled halo. When gazing at her paintings, before determining where the lines and images begin and end, I have been blown by a whole whirlwind of emotions.
"Art not only creates beauty, I create coarseness; Maybe I don't know the meaning of beauty. If painting is a mental disorder of women, then all women are crazy painters."
Teeth (2018) by Marlene Dumas
Mohammed Sami
Sami's paint is not overtly thin, but there is a sense of thinness, a translucency and lightness. This comes partly from the fact that the thin objects in his paintings, such as membrane, gauze curtains and even the shadows are thin, distorting the colours of light. In contrast, the scenes are often intensely coloured, the contrast between thickness and thinness giving an unrealistic unease. The figures are often absent, leaving only some imaginative part.