ASH KEATING: EXTINGUISHED GUEST

Famed for creating large-scale outdoor artworks using paint-filled fire extinguishers, Melbourne artist Ash Keating explains why he's exploring a fresh palette and unconventional settings for his works. Interview by Christian Barker

- Christian Barker

During this year’s Melbourne Art Fair, leading Australian artist Ash Keating held a popup exhibition of his latest paintings. The show occupied the same venue in Melbourne's CBD where Keating first exhibited his signature Gravity System Response technique a decade ago. With the ‘GSR’ method, Keating applies paint using an airless sprayer or pressurised fire extinguishers, then adds water to dilute and manipulate areas of the composition, allowing the paint to blend in a truly fluid manner.

“I'm very particular about the drips,” Keating tells us on a video call from his studio, a few days before his exhibition's opening, wet paintings glistening in the background. “There are some works where, because of the amount of water I use, the pieces continue to develop by themselves as I work on them. In the latter stages, it’s almost like sculpting with water, using highpressure jets or fine sprays to break down the paint.” This, Keating says, “creates that ethereal, floating quality you often see in my work”.

Keating’s most recent works are ethereal indeed, in a delicate palette of pale blue, peach, lavender, pink and lemon. Yet, look closely at the canvases, and there's something visceral — almost fleshy — to the way the colours and textures meld. They're an exercise in contrasts. The hues are serene and calming. But the viewer can't help sensing the vigorous, borderline violent action involved in the paintings’ creation.

Keating got his start as a street artist, initially painting graffiti characters before evolving toward a more abstract approach, dripping or splashing paint on walls, stabbing spraycans and allowing the released pressure to work its random magic.