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Epoxy Art

Studies in Color, Surface Texture, Lighting and Translucence

Art by Vince Giuliano

Visiting major art museums in Europe – like the Rijksmuseum, the Borghese Gallery and the Louvre - I have marveled at the rich surface textures of many of the old Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French and English masterworks. I love the thick sculpted oils put on with heavy brushes. And I marvel at how the surface textures glisten differently under natural and artificial light. These great works have constantly reminded me that something was missing in my own photographic and digital art. My works looked flat because they were flat.

I have been long yearning for surface texture and decided to do something about it a few months ago. Some of the results are in this gallery.

My suggestion for best viewing in this gallery is to scroll down to the color-changing image if you have Java enabled on your computer. You can scroll down past the images on this page to find out how I made these works.



Ciro

Man in Flux

Courtesy Bow

Stained Glass Man

Fiery Projection

Her Wonderment

Humanoid

Bio Entanglement

Cheer Leaders

Intestinal Gas Whirl

Dark Starfish

From Primal Goo

Eye Of The Beast

Chaos Emerging

The Question

Razzle Berry

Mike

Party Scene

Giulianosso

Boy

Alien Flower

Primal Mineral Boil

Bio Vortex

Bio-Astro Event

Biodiversity

Bio Happening A

Bio Happening B

Bioscience A

Bioscience B

Blood and Sap

Body Insides

Body Plumbing

Carnie Doll Flowers

Carnie Mandela

Cosmic Emergence

Cosmic Realizing

Cosmic Strings

Distant Galaxy

Flower Circle

Man Strives

Maniken Peeking

Mysterious Event

Patriotic Suction

Primal Reach

Pushing My Limit

Rio Panties Seller

Sablugle Vortex

Sidewalk Prophet

Snow Devil

Stained Glasswork

Erotic Nightflower

Window

The music on this page is an extract from Scherzo Gitano, composed and created by Vince Giuliano.

How I made this art

At first I thought I would go back to the oil painting I did 50 years ago. But I wanted translucence in the surface in addition to texture. I finally decided to use epoxy paints which dry quickly to make a sculpted semi-translucent plastic-like surface.

So I brought home some large canvases, big rough brushes and a two crates of cans of colored epoxy paints. I jammed the TV set into a corner and took over most of the family room for my work space. The epoxy paint turns out to be tricky since you have to mix a color with hardener before putting it on. A streak of paint turns quickly from being runny to sticky-goopy to hard as rock making the painting process very difficult to control. And the pigment does not always stay mixed evenly when you add the hardener resulting in streaking as the painting hardens. And the stuff leaves a weird acrid smell in the family room that refuses to clear out and makes watching TV unpleasant. Nonetheless, the artistic results were sometimes stunning.

I dove into making paintings with this stuff, mostly portraits and abstractions and a few other works. I kept painting until my wife finally made me stop because the smell was giving her headaches and our cat was going crazy. It was good that I stopped when I did because I was having worse and worse double vision. In the painting process I lost a lot of brushes to hardened epoxy paint. Despite my wearing an apron, the splattered epoxy also permanently decorated several of my good shirts, a few pairs of pants and my best pair of black shoes. They are now only suitable for hippy events. And the family room carpet will never be the same. Small prices considering the dozens of great works I made.*

A selection of this art is in this gallery – studies in color, surface texture, lighting and translucence. You can look for the faces and humanoid figures in some of the abstractions. I hope you enjoy them.

Changing the color balance of an image can sometimes strongly affect the impression it makes. I therefore show each image both in static form as I have made it and in a constantly shifting color representation.

Please see Important tips for viewing the images with sound and shifting color . If Java is not working on your computer you will not be able to see the color-shifting images. When you are ready to go on to the next image, simply click the back button on your browser untill this screen comes on again.

* NOTE As you may have noticed looking at my other galleries, I love to make up stories connected with my art. What you read above about epoxy painting is a story about how I could have created the art using real epoxy in some alternative universe. The actual process I used to make the art was not nearly so messy. All the images in this gallery were created digitally, starting from photographs or my 3d art works. The surface textures, translucence and epoxy-look are Trompe l'Oeil effects created digitally. And my shirts, pants, shoes and family room carpet may be stained here and there, but are at least free of epoxy paint blotches. I still hope you enjoy the art.

All images and sound segments on this site © Copyright, property of Vincent E. Giuliano.
All rights reserved. Reproduction allowed by written permission only.
Contact artist for permission.

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