What is fluid art?

I was painting a sunset when I accidentally dropped two glasses with blue and orange on the canvas. Instead of panicking, I watched the colors mix, some losing their essence while others kept their color. Intrigued, I googled more information.

Fluid art was born in 1930 when the Mexican artist and activist David Alfaro Siquieros accidentally dropped some color. Intrigued, he decides to contact several scientists and the answer is one; fluid dynamics!

“By fluid dynamics or fluid dynamics we mean the study of the behavior of fluids in motion, in relation to the causes that determine it”.

unicusano.it

Fluid art is simple fluid dynamics and taking into account the viscosity, weight of each color, pigments, gravity and direction of the air, it is easier to understand which color will be more prominent and the final composition. That said, one of the reasons why I love fluid art is that despite a careful study of all its components, the result is often unexpected.

This technique recalls our life metaphorically and conceptually; we prepare as best as we can, we analyze the situations, we study and then we try. If we can learn something from fluid art it is that very often the best things happen when we let go, when we stop obsessing and stop trying to control everything.

Fluid art requires the existence of the two opposite poles of our being and our life; control and abandonment. A game of conscious, subconscious and unconscious. A methodical, almost rigid scientific organization that finds its freedom, chaos, expressiveness and nature when colors fall on the canvas, relying on gravity, instinct and emotions.

Fluidity is something unstable, it changes rapidly, it is not fixed. Its flow transforms, evolves, adapts. Within me I have often felt this instability, emotions like waves that come and go, the inability to stay in one place, an absolute will to constantly transform and evolve. Pain, fears, joys, the deepest emotions, the most touching experiences become the main subjects of my fluid representations, so unstable that they are desperately looking for a place to exist, a home, settled. And this stability exists on the canvases where they remain there, motionless, forever.

Fluid art can look aesthetically beautiful, a decoration. But after years of painting and trying different methods, I came to the conclusion that fluid art is an extraordinary concept that goes beyond a cup with some paint.