Flashflood in the Baviaanskloof Print

This piece resembles a cloudburst from above; looking down through the glistening rain to the shale mountain ridges below. It's inspired by a holiday when our house became an island surrounded by rumbling torrents, one hot summer afternoon in the Baviaanskloof. This is the fourth of a series of six pieces called HINTERLAND, which is a series of action paintings referencing the artist's profound moments in nature. The series marks a lost epoch when once there were truly wild places. The acrylic polyurethane paint was poured, flung and drizzled onto 340g cotton duck primed canvas laid flat. This technique, popularised by Jackson Pollock, was adopted so that no human hand directly controlled the application of the medium, in order to reinforce the wilderness theme of the series. Also for this reason, the works are signed on the back of the canvas, not on the image. The artist pigmented the tint base manually to customize a pallet for the painting. The viscosity and thickness of the applied paint make the interweaving textures as important to the piece as the form and color of the splashes. The canvas was stretched for priming but was removed from the stretcher for painting. The painting is sold rolled. The high quality of the paint and canvas ensures that the canvas may be stretched and mounted.