Ruarí Milne@ruarimilne____ ruarimilne.comI use painting as a full-bodied process to record my body’s movement while experimenting with the illusion of depth and space. The intimacy and urgency of touch is integral to my work. I paint with my hands and feet, often sliding across the canvas to archive a moment of physical release. My work questions the order of thought, where dance-like, active engagement with painting leads my conversation with an image and its surface history. I test colours directly on my skin, my fingers flutter through paint to suggest the weightlessness of waves, and scratch marks reveal illuminating raw canvas. Over several weeks, I use a blend of painting, drawing, and sculpting techniques in charcoal, clay, acrylic, rock, and sand. I walk all over my work, spit on it, scratch it, sleep with it, cry with it, bleed into it. With time, space reveals itself, so I care for and cultivate this illusion of depth like a fossilized piece of my body and its natural imperfections. However, the work is never fully finished. Clay and paint peel gently from the surface like shedding skin, so the painting remains active and alive even after the completion of the painting process. TITLE: At dusk we feel our bodies, 2025
Medium:
Acrylic, clay, dirt, grass, charcoal, and oil stick on canvas