On International Women’s Day (unintentionally) last year Doris Reske and started our first Co-Lab experiment and this weekend we painted together for the 12th time. Over the course of the year we have painted in her studio (a lot!), in the sunshine in my garden, together with little painters and just by ourselves. We had great talks, yummy food, painted to music (especially my favourite thing), on small and big substrates and did a good deal of monoprinting too.
Co-Lab 1
Co-Lab 2
Co-Lab 2
Co-Lab 3
Co-Lab 4
Co-Lab 5
Co-Lab 6
Co-Lab 6
Co-Lab 7
Co-Lab 8
Co-Lab 8
Co-Lab 9
Co-Lab 10
Co-Lab 12
Co-Lab 11
Co-Lab 12
We were tired sometimes or had a cold, were in a great mood or just so-so, usually expected nothing and were often surprised what happened with the paintings. We learned a couple of things about our painting process together: we prefer working on large canvases (100x100cm is perfect) and started out switching every 10-15 minutes, but after a while we forgot the clock and just painted a layer until it feels ok for the moment, let it dry and switch canvases. We were good with letting go and let each other “destroy” previous layers, there were only rare cries of “Noooo, don’t paint over that!”.
We sold our very first finished Co-Lab painting Golden Circle that was also the star of the flyer for one of our exhibitions last year and took some of the smaller paintings to a suitcase fair.
And we had a massive deal of fun!
And with something so enjoyable we are now on Year 2. We have a big art show coming in summer, where the Co-Lab paintings will be a crucial part of. Thank you, Doris (for all the transformative and fun hours, and for taking all the photos and photo-collages too)!