Judit Reigl found one of her painting methods almost accidentally.
To protect the floor of her studio, she placed rejected canvases underfoot. Over time they accumulated layers of paint, dust and other material while she repeatedly walked across them. Instead of treating those canvases as ruined, Reigl eventually began excavating the surfaces, scraping through their accumulated layers with homemade tools.
The resulting Guano works turn studio waste into geological structure.
I love this because it reverses the normal hierarchy of the studio.
The artwork is usually the precious object. The floor covering is disposable.
Reigl allowed the disposable material to collect time until it became more interesting than its original purpose.
There is also something close to sampling here. Existing layers are not erased so the artist can begin again. They become raw material for another work.
Judit Reigl had moved from Hungary to France and was connected with Surrealist and later abstract painting, but her work remained much less familiar internationally than many male painters working at comparable scale.
The technique alone deserves attention.
Sometimes a studio produces art even while the artist thinks she is merely protecting the floor.
#JuditReigl #AbstractPainting #GuanoSeries #ForgottenArtists
