Paper fragment stained from "waste" paint water (acrylic) from cleaning brushes.

At the time of its creation I was coming to terms with my decision to shift away from using acrylic paint forever, which brought a sense of resistance and grief for me, as I'd become quite attached to how it behaves. The decision meant letting go of some techniques and material outcomes that felt precious to me.
Letting go of the use of acrylic reframed my perception of its value and particularly of the "waste" pigment that accumulates in paintwater and on peripheral objects like drop sheets and palettes.

By letting paper soak in the paintwater and allowing the water to evaporate, the residual pigment and binder is captured in the paper's fibres, transferring the residual traces of my engagement with acrylic into a new form (and diverting it away from more environmentally harmful trajectories such as waste steams or waterways).

These residual traces of acrylic are precious to me, not only for the time we have shared together, but as a material whose origins precedes my own life by thousands, perhaps millions of years (acrylic is made from petrochemicals made from oil, made from fossilised plankton).