MIKESIAN Studio have ended the year in style by creating a unique canvas. The 150 x 100cm heavyweight canvas features immaculate hand-painted typography combined with perforations cut with a scalpel and a very steady hand.
First off could you just tell me a little about the project and what inspired you to create the canvas?
'We’ve spent a couple of years messing round with different styles of art, to try and see where we felt right really - and we always come back to language/words. We’d been playing with a lot of painted signage, and were just looking to develop that line of thought really, without straying into sign writing or anything like that. This canvas just comes from that, messing about with words and letters and finding something that felt interesting. We actually ended up with a large scale custom canvas from another commission that didn’t go ahead, and thought it’d be a good use of it.'
How long did it take to complete?
'It took about 2 weeks overall. We normally spend too much time on pieces - especially typographic ones - as things can get really precise and intricate. We thought that by swapping a wordy paragraph for one huge word, we’d find it a bit more immediate and let go of some of that precision. Add to that the thought of finishing the painting of the canvas, then stabbing holes all over it, and the idea was for it to feel like a bit of a looser piece overall.'
Cutting the holes right through the finished thing was a bit nerve wracking
What was your process in creating the piece? Did you have to put special attention/practice into how to create the holes?
'The process was pretty weird for us really…. To design it, scale it up, then paint for a week or so is relatively normal. But then waiting for it to dry, and cutting the holes right through the finished thing was a bit nerve wracking. We had a bit of practice first, then found a good way to get consistent cuts with a scalpel. The final part was probably the worst; we tried a new method of finishing/varnishing, using a heavy set gloss pouring medium to create an almost enamel like texture on top. That was a bit wild. We’re absolutely terrified of varnish at the best of times, and bumping a whole new process onto the end with something we had no experience with wasn’t very christmassy at all.'
Will you be looking to create more canvas artworks like this, and in particular ones that play with the format, in the future?
'Yeah absolutely. We want to push the painting/type/language side of our work the most really, so hopefully there’s a lot more of this kind of stuff to come. We’ve got a piece in the Manchester Open exhibition at home which does a similar kind of thing. We’re trying to figure out a way to scale the Holy Fuck canvas down into screen prints at the moment, but just have to work out how holes would work when displaying the prints.'
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