This is perhaps John’s favorite piece, I think, in part due to the events surrounding its creation.
As John describes, when working with liquid plastic there is only an illusion of control. More than once, the nature of the resin has influenced its own placement during a pour. Thus, John may begin a piece with a specific design in mind, but that doesn’t mean that the design will actually appear. The captioned piece is a great example of this.
Originally, this piece was intended to be another work that featured an image of a Phoenix. The fiery red and yellow base layers were poured and all was going well. The dark “smoke” like layers were then poured. Initially, all looked good, but as the plastic began to cure, the dark resin began to diffuse and move into the “clear” center. This caused the dark upper layers to obscure far more of the lower “fire” then John had originally intended. In near panic, he reentered the pouring studio and attempted some kind of damage control. It was while fighting the resin that he had his epiphany, which was rather than force the resin to be the piece that he wanted, he would instead work with the resin to create the piece that it wanted to be.
The result was a series of new and unique textures within the black “smoke.” Unfortunately, these elements do not show up well in the photograph, but, within the darkness is a hexagonal mud-crack-like texture that is, in my opinion, impressively ornate. However, much of this can only be appreciated when the piece is viewed in person.
John very much liked the look of the crack-texture and has since experimented with recreating it to one degree or another on more recent pieces.
prguitarman
discoholicmusic
romaincrisis
ellievsbear
andulkaphoto
izzy806