From the Resene News – issue 1/2005

Paint planet - A giant paint sculpture
Notorious New Zealand Waikato Art Award (2003)-winning artist Rohan Wealleans works on the tactile knife-edge of painting, redefining the medium. Rohan developed the concept of a 2.5 metre high paint ball working with Resene acrylic paint for the Work it component for SCAPE Biennial 04.

'Over the past five years I have been working with Resene paints, using hundreds of litres, pushing it to its limit to see what I can do with it. It is amazing stuff and very versatile. I have used it in many different ways. I have layered up panels with up to one hundred layers of paint and carved back into it to make paintings. I have painted it on windows and peeled it off to form sheets, which can be rolled and carved into solid paint replicas of real objects like cans, fruit, or a whole fish. I have used it to make beautiful stones which I have turned into jewellery. I have used Resene paint to make an entire wearable outfit for a tribal woman. I have even created an entire Pacific Island culture through Resene paints. Resene paints are the best paints I have ever used, you can do just about anything with them.'

'For this project, which will be my biggest project to date, I am making a giant paint sculpture. The process is simple; carve the shape of the sculpture out of polystyrene, cover with fibreglass and then put as many layers of Resene paint possible on the structure in the time allowed, then carve into the paint revealing the many layers beneath the surface.'

Rohan Weallean's work entitled Planet Spore is a giant painting in the park, located during SCAPE in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, in close proximity to the Peacock Fountain and the Robert McDougall Gallery at the Canterbury Museum - the perfect place for an artwork that talks about beauty and materiality. Layer upon layer of paint has been applied to this monstrous thing, resulting in a bulk of 2 metres diameter and over 100 layers of paint. But unlike a usual painting the different layers are exposed revealing the depth of colour once hidden beneath.

See the layers as they were built.

 
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