Michael Fantuz’ vision is fed by extensive travel and experience in aviation and exploration. His large-scale palette knife works invite the viewer above and into his aerial perspective on landscapes and cityscapes. The paint is thickly applied, bold in colour, and based in Fantuz’ discipline to limit his tools to palette knives only. This forces an intuitive engagement with the colour and density of the materials over the minute precision that smaller brushes would afford. Both the knife stroke and viscosity determine an aesthetic that reflects movement and abstraction; the stroke is wider, with bold impasto edges. This invites attention to tone, hue, contrast, and a more open compositional focus, which Fantuz embraces. The subject is seen from a distance rather than in tight close-up.
