Joe Brittain
FIL Series

These new works utilize custom paints made from pure pigments on marble. The colors are rich reds and maroons, made with iron oxide culled from rust; the mineral that gives color to blood, brick, and earth. The ancient paint recipe has historically been a cheap way to add vibrancy and protection to rural homes and barns. Brittain grew up surrounded by this ubiquitous color, and when he discovered as a child that it was traditionally made with livestock blood as the iron source, it was a huge shift in his sense of materiality and understanding of the world around him.

The compositions are meditations on space, volume and balance. They explore a tension between mental, pictorial space and sculptural object-hood, a tension between “the thing and the thing in itself.” They come from a desire to interact with the utilitarian philosophies of a wide range of inspirations, from Shaker aesthetics, to American Minimalism, to traditional Japanese craft forms.