Carolina Conservation

A little in-progress cleaning of one of our client’s large, contemporary acrylic paintings (Sarah for scale)
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The painting came to us exhibiting lifting and delamination of the paint layers, which required injection of conservation adhesive and heat treatment to return the lifting paint into plain. Sarah is cleaning around the areas of loss and lifting paint after the adhesive was applied to consolidate those areas. During consolidation, there is usually excess adhesive that has to be removed before moving on to the next steps of conservation.

🎵 REVERSE REVERSE…cha cha now y’all 🎵
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Currently working on this reverse glass painting, which came to us with a layer of soot, heavy odor, drip marks, flaking on the surface and multiple losses. Because the frame is a combination of gilding and reverse glass, we are treating the lifting paint on both the painting and the frame.

Strummin’ out some soot 🎸 (and debris…and mold…and drip marks 😳)
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This acrylic on canvas required extensive treatments after coming to us with numerous issues, including the heavy layers of soot particulates and debris, abrasions on the surface, drip marks, punctures and tears, mold growth and a heavy smoke odor. Mold remediation was required, as well as the mechanical removal of deposits, moisture treatments, the mending of the tears and extensive retouching.

A 🐦 👁️ view of some retouching in-progress
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Our Paintings Conservator, Sarah, is currently in the process of retouching this Shanghai skyline piece that came into the studio after being damaged during shipping. Paper from the wrapping materials adhered to the paint layers in several areas throughout the contemporary painting, causing damage to the paint layer beneath. Because the paint layer is a relatively young one and was exhibiting some sensitivity to water-based solutions during testing, Sarah used a solution with an altered pH that could be used safely to remove the residual paper. After removing the paper from the surface, she filled the losses to the paint layer and is now retouching them.

What’s your sign? ♐
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Our client’s print of Sagittarius on paper came to us covered in a heavy layer of dirt and grime, especially at the top, center and bottom left corner. Additionally, there was deep creasing throughout the paper, fold lines, small stains and minor foxing. The goal of treatment was not full conservation, but to focus on minimizing the deep creases in the paper support. We gave the map a detailed surface clean, bathed it for stain removal, flattened it and returned it to our client in archival materials. Swipe ➡️ to see the results!