Pour, don’t tip! Michael Stubbs emphasises the difference between his own technique and Jackson Pollock’s dripping process. Similar to the American, the 45-year-old Englishman works almost entirely without a paintbrush. He proceeds, however, with utmost concentration when he lets paint flow from buckets onto his surfaces. Even though he occasionally allows the paint to spread randomly, his main purpose is to control the eventual outcome. Plastic stencils channel the paints mixed from floor varnish. When dry, you can feel the colourful puddles and lakes with your fingertips as if they were thin sheets of plastic.
With his first solo exhibition in Galerie Hollenbach, the London artist has now gone one step further. He pushes simplified objects or letters in between the bright ensemble of shapes and colours. In the pictures of his „Vanitas“ series, Stubbs has moved beyond his formal interests to reinterpret a classical theme. He uses dice as a symbol of destiny, as well as skulls and stylised red flames to transform the abstract crossover into a pop-art funeral pyre.
