Explore the relationship between painting and movement as acts of creative expression utilizing the artist’s body in this 4-week class. Using acrylic paint, watercolor, canvas, and paper, participants will discover how to combine motion and painting into a single artwork. Connections will be made to performance documentation works and action paintings in the Denver Art Museum collection through gallery visits and digital images.

Each class will begin with a discussion of one action painting (Elaine de Kooning’s Bullfight) or one performance documentation work (Ana Teresa Fernández’s Erasure 4) that inspires full body gestures like jumping, spinning, and dancing. The chosen artwork will serve as the gateway into a demonstration of techniques and activities, including motion painting prompts, painting while moving, and group reflections on the traces of movement seen in paintings.