The artist who paints on unconventional supports: wood, metal, fabric

01Painting on wood: a practice older than canvas

Stretched canvas is a relatively recent invention in the history of painting. For centuries, painters worked on wood. The Flemish Primitives, from Jan van Eyck to Rogier van der Weyden, painted on oak panels. Byzantine icons were painted on lime or cypress boards. Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is painted on a poplar panel. Wood is not an alternative support: it is the original support of Western painting.

Today, many contemporary artists choose wood for its specific qualities. Japanese artist Fuyuko Matsui paints on wood panels in the nihonga tradition, using mineral pigments and animal glue on gesso-covered wood. The result is a surface of a smoothness and luminosity that canvas cannot offer. American artist Kehinde Wiley, famous for his official portrait of Barack Obama, sometimes works on wood panel to achieve a smoother and more precise surface than canvas.

Wood offers a rigidity that canvas lacks. Fine details, subtle glazes and techniques requiring a perfectly flat surface work better on wood than on canvas. If you paint on wood, this technical advantage is a selling argument you should articulate clearly.

02Metal as a painting surface

Painting on metal is a gesture dating back to the sixteenth century, when Flemish and Italian painters began using copper plates for small formats. Copper offered an extremely smooth, non-absorbent surface that allowed microscopic detail work. Adam Elsheimer's paintings on copper, in the early seventeenth century, are miniatures of astonishing precision that influenced Rembrandt himself.

In contemporary art, metal is used for its aesthetic and conceptual qualities. American artist Rudolf Stingel has produced paintings on polished aluminium plates whose reflective surface interacts with the environment. Icelandic artist Hrafnhildur Arnardottir uses steel plates as a support for compositions that play on the contrast between the industrial hardness of the support and the fluidity of paint.

Aluminium has become the most common metallic support in contemporary art. It is light, does not rust, offers a smooth and regular surface, and can be cut to any format. Dibond, a composite panel of aluminium and polyethylene, is used by many artists and photographers for its extreme flatness and lightness. If you paint on aluminium or dibond, you are working on a support the market is beginning to know and accept well.

Raw iron and steel add an additional dimension: rust. The oxidation of the support becomes a plastic element you can integrate into your composition or let evolve over time. American artist Richard Serra has always worked with Corten steel, whose rust patina is an integral part of the work. If you use rust as an aesthetic element, document it in your work listing: the buyer must know the work will evolve and that this evolution is intended.

03Fabric as support and medium

Painting on fabric is a gesture that crosses cultures. Pacific tapa cloth, East African kanga, Indian painted saris, Japanese kakemono: painting on fabric is a global tradition that Western art long ignored before rediscovering it in the twentieth century.

American artist Sam Gilliam was one of the first to use unstretched canvas as both support and form, letting fabric hang, fold and drape in space. His draped paintings redefined the relationship between painting and sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s. Ghanaian artist El Anatsui uses bottle caps sewn together to create monumental metallic tapestries exhibited in the world's greatest museums and selling for several million dollars.

Closer to painting in the strict sense, South African artist Billie Zangewa works with sewn silk to create figurative works of remarkable delicacy. Her medium is fabric, her subject the daily life of Black women, and her work is collected by major institutions. French artist Sheila Hicks has worked with textiles since the 1960s, creating works that oscillate between painting, sculpture and textile, represented by galleries including Alison Jacques.

If you paint on fabric, you join a rich and contemporary tradition that makes your support an artistic argument as much as a technical one.

04The practical questions the buyer will ask

A buyer discovering a work on an unconventional support will ask specific questions you must anticipate. The first is conservation: how does this work age? Will the wood warp? Will the metal rust? Will the fabric deteriorate? You must have precise and honest answers. If you paint on wood, explain what type of wood you use, how it is prepared, what treatments protect it. If you paint on metal, specify whether the support is treated against oxidation. If you paint on fabric, indicate whether the fabric is stretched, marouflaged onto a rigid support or presented freely.

The second question is hanging. A canvas on a stretcher hangs with a nail and a hook. A wood panel too, but it is heavier. A metal plate requires a hanging system adapted to its weight. An unstretched fabric needs a specific device. Include in your work listing the hanging recommendations, the weight of the work and, if necessary, supply the hanging system with the work.

The third question is transport. Unconventional supports pose logistical challenges that stretched canvas does not. A rigid wood panel cannot be rolled. A metal plate can scratch or be scratched. Fabric can crease. Plan appropriate packaging and include packing and shipping costs in your pricing considerations.

05Turning the support into a selling argument

Your unconventional support is an asset, not a handicap. In a market where thousands of artists offer painting on canvas, your choice of support differentiates you immediately. The buyer entering your universe is intrigued by the materiality of your works, by the dialogue between paint and support, by the tactile and physical dimension the support contributes.

Speak about your support in your communication. Explain why you chose it, what it brings to your work, how it influences your practice. French artist Daniel Buren has used striped canvases stretched in architectural space since the 1960s. His support, or rather his refusal of the traditional support, became his signature. You do not need to go that far into radicality, but you must make your support an element of your artistic narrative.

06Artedusa and unconventional supports

The online market is paradoxically a favourable terrain for unconventional supports. In a gallery, the buyer can touch, feel the weight, appreciate the texture. Online, description and photography do the work. But it is also online that curiosity will arise, where the buyer will search for something different, something that does not look like what they see everywhere else.

Artedusa lets you present your works with the descriptive and visual richness they demand. Multiple photos, detailed descriptions, precise keywords: all the tools are there for your work on wood, metal or fabric to find the buyer who is looking for it. Discover artedusa.com.