Araminta Blue is interested in how the imagined space can be used as an escape and protection from our ‘reality’, whilst at the same time it can help us view the real experience with an added clarity.
The oil paint is either diluted to act like watercolour, applied in washes, scrubbed with rags or thickened to a clay or cement-like consistency that is slicked and scratched. The canvas is treated like a drawing on paper: the process of making the work is open to the viewer in the translucent layers and visibly scrubbed out marks. The subjects weave together, emerging and dissolving into the canvas.
Colliding different uses of paint and adapting forms help to express fragmented bodily sensation. Parts of figures are seen as fragile, vulnerable, transient - pieces are missing, absorbed into the setting. Other parts are more vibrant and energetic with intense colour. Then other areas have a sense of strength, protective armour or shell-like layers. The subjects are familiar yet unplaceable, allowing for interpretative narratives.
Araminta Blue was born 1990 in Cyprus. She currently lives and works in London. Blue graduated with a Master's in painting from the Slade School of Art in 2019 and holds a BA Hons from Ruskin School of Art. She has received numerous accolades including the Artists Collecting Society Studio Prize and was shortlisted for the Chadwell Award, Derek Hill Scholarship and the Hix Award. Blue's works have been presented in various solo and group exhibitions across the UK. Her recent works have been showcased in Christie's and Bonhams London.