The thesis aims to show paint as an embodiment of form, matter and material through overlays of dripped paint. Paint's liquidity and its response to gravity and verticality are explored in the thesis. The thesis also explores the behavior of paint of a particular consistency to drip, trickle, and flow down a vertical painting surface, in this case, the doors.
One of paint's physical properties investigated in the thesis is its liquidity. Almost all that drips is characteristically in liquied form, and the drip completes its fall once it lands on a surface. Dripping on an object through layers and overlays gives the dripped paint a sense of form, shape, corporeality and literalness.
In the thesis, the door is used as a surface to give dripped paint a certain physicality. The dripped door is not a painted representation of a door, but is in fact the object matter itself as well as the subject matter. It becomes both subject and object, and serves as a painting and an actual object simultaneously. The ground itself, which is the door is used as the painting support but also becomes the figure. The figure which is the literal door becomes the ground. A certain ambiguity is elicited between subject and object, figure and ground. The painted door concurrently becomes ground and figure.
As questioned earlier whether paint is seen and not looked at, resurfaces the statement of paint being shown as matter and material through drips. In traditional painting, one uses paint to create an image of something, be it a fruit, machine or a person. However, upon completion of the image, paint loses its autonomy and disappears in the illusion. People perceive the image rather than the material itself. Even in painted objects, like a door that is painted red, people perceive the color more than the medium used. It becomes a red door. The dripped doors aim to show paint's materiality and for it not to become subsumed in the image. The drips aim to perceive paint as paint.
