Provenance 89, 2001
12 x 14 in.
Oil and metallic pigment on panel

Provenance 96, 2001
12 x 14 in.
Oil and metallic pigment on panel

The View 9, 2002
24 x 24 in.
Oil and metallic pigment on panel

I have been working on the Provenance series since l998. Before this series, I had been experimenting with gold, copper and silver leaf and oil paint. I enjoyed the reflectiveness of the surfaces, but the look of the leaf did not give me the painterly result that I was interested in achieving.
I bought metal powders and mica based pigments, and began to work with them, still with oil paint and oil mediums. Over then next few years, I developed the technique I am using now, which consists of many layers of oil paint, dry metallic and mica based pigment and thinned alkyd medium applied to a primed maple panel.
The vaporous shapes resulting from my technique suited my interest in creating ambiguous, ethereal space. The horizontal line had been occurring in my work for years, and along with its insistence in emerging from my psyche, was its usefulness in providing a foil for the abstract atmosphere I was creating. The resulting suggestion of landscape was not originally my intention, but I appreciate the element of chance in my work and continued with this paradigm, and its many metaphoric possibilities. I often contradict the suggestion of place by countering the landscape with another perspective, or adding unexpected horizontal lines, in hopes of allowing for shifting interpretations.
Last Spring I completed the one hundredth painting in the Provenance series, and have adopted The View as the title for the next group.

Tyrell Collins
2002