Poured Paintings: Collaboration with Physics and Material Intelligence
I've long been captivated by the spontaneous creation of patterns—the way form emerges through fluid motion and natural forces. My poured paintings are rooted in the groundbreaking technique pioneered by David Alfaro Siqueiros, in which paints of differing viscosities are layered and allowed to interact organically, creating intricate patterns through pure material chemistry.
The Siqueiros Method: History and Philosophy
David Alfaro Siqueiros, the Mexican muralist and contemporary of Diego Rivera, revolutionized painting in the mid-20th century by embracing accident and material intelligence. His "accidental painting" technique rejected total artistic control in favor of collaboration with physics—allowing paint to move, flow, and create according to its own nature.
This philosophy resonates deeply with my exploration of energy and form. Rather than imposing every decision on the canvas, I create conditions for the materials themselves to participate in the creative process. The paint becomes a collaborator, not just a tool.
Pure Material Chemistry: No Silicone
Unlike many contemporary pour painters who rely on silicone additives to create cells and patterns, I work with pure acrylic chemistry. This isn't just an aesthetic choice—it's about preserving the work's permanence and integrity.
Silicone can compromise the long-term stability of acrylic paintings, creating adhesion issues and potential degradation over time. By working with the raw chemistry of professional-grade acrylics—their natural viscosities, pigment densities, and flow characteristics—I embrace material intelligence in its purest form. The paints themselves drive the creation of pattern and form.
The Technical Process
Through controlled pours and multiple applications over textured surfaces, I allow paints of different viscosities to separate naturally. Each layer responds to gravity, surface tension, and pigment interactions in ways that are predictable in principle but impossible to control in detail.
The result: intricate, unpredictable patterns that seem to evolve on their own—organic formations I could never create through conscious control alone. Cells divide and merge, colors separate and recombine, edges sharpen and blur according to the physics of the materials.
Control and Surrender
There's a delicate balance in this work between setting conditions and allowing the paint to decide. I choose colors, viscosities, pouring sequences, and surface textures—but once the pour begins, I surrender to the process.
It's a dance between intention and accident, between artist and material. I can influence outcomes, but I cannot dictate them. This collaboration with physics creates results that feel alive, dynamic, and genuinely surprising—even to me.
Physical Weight and Depth
Each poured painting carries substantial physical weight and depth. Built layer by layer, these works reveal hidden symmetries, unexpected color relationships, and visual tension frozen in the surface.
They're not just objects—they're living records of movement, material, and time. You can see the history of their creation preserved in every cell, every flow line, every place where colors met and interacted. The surface becomes a map of forces that shaped it.
Natural Pattern Formation
These paintings connect to the same forces that create patterns throughout nature: cells dividing, galaxies forming, water flowing over stone, minerals crystallizing. The patterns aren't arbitrary—they emerge from the same physical laws that govern the universe.
In this way, my poured paintings embody the same energy-to-form principle as my landscape work. Both explore how energy moves through matter to create visible form. One captures the energy of place and atmosphere; the other captures the energy of materials in motion.
A Frozen Moment of Material Intelligence
Each poured painting is a collaboration with physics itself—a frozen moment of material intelligence revealing patterns that seem to evolve on their own. They honor Siqueiros's revolutionary insight: that surrendering control doesn't mean abandoning artistry. It means inviting the materials themselves to participate in creation.
These works sit alongside my landscape paintings in the gallery, offering a different but complementary exploration of how energy becomes form, how chaos finds order, and how collaboration—even with paint and gravity—can produce results more compelling than control alone.
