Aluminium in Contemporary Painting: An Industrial Support at the Service of Art
Light, rigid, non-porous: aluminium has established itself over recent decades as an alternative support to canvas for part of contemporary painting.
Long confined to industrial uses — construction, aeronautics, car bodywork — aluminium has gradually established itself as a painting support for a segment of contemporary artists, particularly those working with media that require a stable, non-absorbent surface. Its relative rarity in the history of painting owes less to any intrinsic quality than to the fact that its large-scale industrial availability is comparatively recent.
The first property that distinguishes aluminium from canvas or wood panel is its non-porosity. Unlike these traditional supports, aluminium does not absorb paint: it remains entirely on the surface, which alters its optical behaviour. This characteristic is particularly sought after with paints high in binder content, such as cellulosic paint, which produce on aluminium effects of chromatic variability depending on the viewing angle — a phenomenon barely perceptible on canvas.
The second property is dimensional stability. Aluminium does not deform under the effect of humidity or temperature variation as a stretched canvas or wood panel can, which makes it a preferred support for large-scale works intended to travel between several exhibition venues.
Preparing an aluminium sheet for painting, however, requires specific know-how: careful degreasing of the surface, application of a special metal-bonding primer, and rigorous control of drying conditions between layers. Insufficient preparation results, in the medium term, in delamination of the paint layers — a risk that most artists working with this support learn to manage with experience.
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