CHRISTO BRAUN FINE ART

Artist's Statement, as of 11-11-205

The majority of these works are created by adding dyes and pigments to epoxy and polyester resin and then applying it to rigid substrates like aluminum, steel, and wood panel. Occasionally I use mirrored acrylic for the extra depth and light bounce.

 

The plasticity of resin as a painting medium has afforded me the opportunity to paint through the surface of nature, which is my primary source of inspiration. 

 

Working in series, I color-mix and execute each phase of each piece within the limited amount of "pot life" I have created, and use a developed skill set to do so.

 

This visceral dialogue becomes a captured moment of energy-infused visual phenomena. Rather than paint the object, I paint the emotional response created within me by that-which-appears-before-my-eyes.

 

Working in this medium here in the Florida Keys, I constantly discover ways of portraying things that other mediums have never satisfied me with: the color saturation, resin’s ability to overlay imagery, the ways it can be carved, sculpted, polished, and manipulated.

 

I have found a material that allows me to paint what I need to see, which is often through the assumed object or surface to the way it has been created for me to observe it.  

 

I am constantly studying the old masters and contemporary creators.  I am looking into the similarities of phenomena that attract my aesthetic attention, with the underlying question being “why is this so beautiful, and how can I paint it?”

 

(I am older than that photo shows, but it's the same me.)