White?

by Joseph T Sinclair

There has been a long-lasting fad of all-white paintings going back many years. These paintings are typically 4 ft x 8 ft or larger. They’re all white. You can find them in some museum collections regardless of the size or prestige of a particular museum. If you want to buy one, they range in price from a few hundred dollars to $30,000.

Fortunately, this fad has come to photography. Not long ago in the Napa Valley, I saw a very large all-white photograph. So, now photographers can take part in this lucrative image industry. The question is, how do you want to do this? Ironically, it may be that you are better off painting such a non-image rather than photographing it.

For example, if you are to make a 4 ft x 8 ft photograph all white, you need to find a clean white flat surface large enough to photograph (or perhaps create it in Photoshop). A metal print that size is going to cost you about $1,200. Or a paper print is going to cost a lot of money too, and you’ll have to mount it on a very large mounting board. Then you’ll need to frame it and perhaps even put glass over it. That pretty quickly adds up to hundreds of dollars of cost. That’s why I say, why not paint it instead? Here are the steps to do so:

• Buy a 4 ft x 8 ft panel of half-inch plywood with a layer of paper on one side. This is a standard lumber item.
• Buy a small can of latex glossy white paint.
• Rent a paint sprayer.
• Spray-paint the panel white on the paper side. (If you use a brush, viewers will see it’s not a photograph.)
• Take 3/4 inch by 2-inch wood molding painted white (or gray) and attach it all around the panel for a frame.
• Attach some wiring on the back for hanging.
• Sell for up to $30,000.

This is one of the rare artistic cases where painting is easier and less expensive than taking a photograph.

This is going to be a hard sell, however, unless you attach some BS to it to make it valuable. You have an explanation to write and the title to play with.

The explanation takes a little work but is not too difficult. Simply research on Google what other artists have said about their all-white paintings and distill to a similar line of compelling BS.

Titles are more difficult. They take some ingenuity and cultural awareness. But an all-white painting doesn’t have much value without evocative title words. Here are a few suggestions:

Pallor of the Matrix

Nuclear Landscape

Cache of Enlightenment

Samantha’s Anguish

Zachery’s Clean Soul

Cloud Number 17

(I’m sure you can do better than I have.)

There you have it! An easy way to cash in on this long-standing trend. This is the easiest fine art you’ll ever create. But a good title that is currently very trendy will take a lot of reflection. It might be something you want to refer to a focus group. This fine artwork lends itself to easy scaling. (Again, an observation based on a Napa Valley photograph exhibit.) For instance, you can put a thin line across the panel (presumably at the Phi grid line), and the painting becomes a whole different work of art.

Or you can put a thick line, preferably blurry, across the painting in the same way to create an additional great work of fine art. Etc.

Why work hard when you don’t have to? Be forewarned, however, that if you proceed as I have outlined, your spouse and your friends, relatives, and neighbors may think you’re something of a slacker. They may even call you heinous names. But all great artists have endured such accusations, and you should not let that bother you. It’s enough that museum curators and art gallery managers everywhere will applaud your vacuous work. So, the hell with your own people’s scurrilous denunciations.