Paint-ing as a Democratic Act.

PaDA came about from an urgency for the public to connect with painting, and for my work, based with paint, to be able to create discussions and possibilities with the broadest spectrum of people. It seemed futile to create work based in a visual experiential language if that language of communication, wasn’t working.

It was no coincidence that the acronym PaDA is similar to DADA, as I acknowledge the absurdity of paint when times are filled with horror, hate and fear. The tension between the playful materiality of paint that also holds the weight of human conscience is palpable.

Art responses were painted inside High Street shop windows and the public were invited to make their marks, with paint, on the outside. What ensued were micro rich visual conversations that could not have been planned for. Translated into an exhibition format, a live installation Joined Up Thinking, I installed a screen, similar in size to Duchamps glass, where the public could digest the artwork around them ans add their own marks. Infinite images, possibilities and a relaxing of control.

This wasn’t my exhibition. Rather a set of site based possibilities that took shape -over time- from the actions and presence of whole context and communities.

Now, today, PaDA is beginning another shapeshift… into examining play, play spaces and creating moments and sequences of moments developed with other people, together and equally, as if the process of making is now a doing of finding out.

Where art itself is a verb, process is redundant and we enter work in the Middle Bit… the space that has no demands except to follow the spontaneous sparks of curiosity that can take us to new areas of learning, growth and connection.

A young child with brown hair adding her painted mark to the artists work on glass, in a brightly lit space.
A line of people outside adding their colourful painted marks to the artists work on a large glass window during an interactive live public art event.
(PLayTopia here)
People involved in an abstract art activity, with colorful paint splashes and blur of individuals in the background.
A woman with gray hair wearing a red floral top and white pants stands outside next to a shopping cart, viewed through a glass window covered with colorful, abstract chalk drawings, including smiley faces and swirls.
People painting abstract artwork on a glass divider in an indoor space.
Child wearing red shirt, shorts and hat, reaching up towards a woman behind a glass window decorated with paint splatter design. People standing nearby.
Two women stand at a bus stop with a green-painted wall. One woman is painting as the other looks at her phone. The bus stop has a protected area with clear side panels decorated with red, white, green, and blue paint.
Colorful graffiti of hearts, a face, and abstract shapes painted on a glass window.