The Italian painter Alberto Burri often “paints” pictures that have little or no paint in them. Expert in the ways of underbrush, particularly its cast skins and tissues. From his early exhibitions Burri was labeled the artist of wounds” because of the “actual gashes and tears right in the fabric of the picture” (Braun, 2016). The reference to wounds speaks to the visceral level on which Burri’s work addresses the viewer. Burri’s response was to look for meaning in the more immediate sensations of abject materials that aimed to express—and assert—a subjective individualism, and in this way he spoke for himself and all humanity.
Translating the painterly methodology into something more spatial required a material that was self supporting or could make sturdy forms. Plastic, wax and sheet pvc were melted with a heat gun across de-constructed section and elevation panels to ‘heal the grid’ as was done with the painted grid drawing. This creates an architectural form that is connective, spatial and unpredictable in how it manifests. What is laid down or wrapped as a plastic sheet twists, shrivels, melts, discolours, searing to the surface.
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