Live Demonstration – “Painting with Both Sides of the Paint”

LIVE ARTIST DEMONSTRATIONS
Pennisi will demonstrate the technique during St. Petersburg’s Second Saturday ArtWalks. 7:30PM. Visitors can watch the process—and the moment the film is peeled away to reveal the hidden side of the paint.

Artist Steve Pennisi presents Painting with Both Sides of the Paint, an exhibition at the Mirella Cimato Gallery in the St. Pete Opera Building, November 1 through December 31, 2026.

Pennisi’s groundbreaking technique grew out of his desire to discover something he could truly “own” as an artist. The breakthrough came unexpectedly when the corner of dried paint peeled away from the waxed paper of his disposable palette. Underneath were gestural patterns that had been completely hidden while he painted.

“It had a life and spontaneity I’d never seen before,” Pennisi says, “something that felt human but was freed of any doubt or hesitation.”

After extensive experimentation, Pennisi developed a process of painting on clear film using a squeegee as his only tool. The painted film is adhered to canvas and peeled away, revealing the previously hidden underside of the paint. If something compelling develops on the visible surface, he can capture that image with another piece of film—allowing him, quite literally, to work with both sides of the paint.

The process has fundamentally changed the way Pennisi makes art. Rather than knowing where a painting will end before he begins, he now works between chance and intention, responding to unexpected images and patterns as they emerge.

“Much of the process is just looking—like finding animals in the clouds or Jesus in the toast,” Pennisi says. “I’m able to bend the paint the way a musician bends a note.”

Pennisi’s work challenges traditional ideas of depth, figure and ground, creating a dynamic tension between the illusion of an image and the physical presence of the paint itself.

His Painting with Both Sides of the Paint work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including Artis/Naples, the Boca Raton Museum of Art and the Alexandria Museum of Art.