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Assignment four

This part has been particularly hard for me because apart from some of the surrealist landscapes which I like very much, I don’t care for traditional representational landscapes, even though I admire the skill - and I don’t care for abstract landscapes either.

I therefore had to think long and hard about what part of the landscape genre I would like to improve for this assignment and incorporate in my work in future, and came to the conclusion that I was most comfortable with the linear perspective exercise because I used the photo transfer techniques I had learned in the Clare Wilson workshop last year.

I did more research on contemporary landscape artists, trying to find landscape works that most appealed to me, and found Church and White, 2009, by Alexis Rockman, an American contemporary artist. The derelict building, the somber colours that he uses, and his impressionistic brush strokes make this painting full of mood and atmosphere which I really like -

from http://alexisrockman.net/american-icons/

I'm also interested in the concept of landscape as a process, which Clare Wilson explained to us, where one can explore the paradox between subjectivity and realism, between the abstract and the real world, and question the known and unknown. These concepts appeal to me because they have the potential to create something different and more expressive, neither representational nor abstract, where the result has an element of the unknown.

I did some research on contemporary landscape painting as a process and found a journal article Fresh Air: Space–time, and new models for landscape painting by Joy Clair, where she explores the idea of how a landscape process can involve the interaction between the natural condition and social processes, and how painting can engage with actual and social spaces. The new model of landscape painting based on ideas of space-time and place provides a new vitality and relevance to the contemporary genre.

To create a contemporary landscape for the background I wanted to incorporate aspects of my life in the UK and Peru, so I printed a series of photographs of places I’ve been in both countries in A4 format - some of them just because I like the photo and others because they mean something to me, which I would use to create a background.

Onto this background I decided to paint a view of a railway bridge in Wandsworth that I photographed from a train a month ago - full of character because of the grime, rust, dust, graffiti and rain stains. The scene is drab but also quite beautiful, and reminded me of Alexis Rockman's,painting Church and White, and the Joy Clair article when she talks about the interaction between the natural condition and social processes -

Whilst the train was halted I also managed a quick sketch -

I decided to use a 75 x 50 cm stretched canvas as my support, and arranged my background photos to give a kind of gridded but irregular background, cutting them into different shapes which I glued down using Plextol 498 adhesive – and when removed (process explained in detail elsewhere in this blog) I had an image of the photos on the canvas -

For my medium for painting the building and the bridge onto this background I used Sepia Chinese Ink and Gouache, which I thought would go better with the technique, giving a certain transparency so as not to lose the background, and to make a pleasing composition I used the rule of three to adjust my railway bridge, so the bridge and the building above were in balance.

I wanted this to be an expressive painting so I tried to draw loosely, and was quite careful not to paint over the background too heavily, as obviously obscuring the background would defeat the whole object of the painting, and used a sponge to give texture to the tree foliage as in my soft and hard landscape, and small brush strokes and dabs to give texture to the gravel under the rails.

My final piece -

I think this is an interesting painting and quite expressive, and that the collage of colours serves well as a background for the bridge. There is of course a lot of room for improvement in the use of colours and in using the technique, so a second version would be better, but I’m satisfied with it as a first attempt.

Looking again at 'Church and White' the main influence is the type of subject. Though they are very different paintings, the type is similar - a dirty old railway passage and a quite atmospheric composition. The colour of the background in my painting makes it a bit more cheerful, though I did try to replicate the looseness in the brush strokes on the ground rails and in the rails in front of the trees, which I think helps to produce an atmospheric effect. I know I need more practice, but I think I managed to get some of the atmospheric effect.

It was difficult deciding when the painting was finished - I could have gone on working forever making it more representational and making my drawing more precise, but I think I would have lost the freshness if I had continued. I wanted to create something more in the impressionistic and atmospheric style and I think I have. Though the left side of the building does need more definition and light and shadow.

I quite like the background, but I wish I hadn’t cut all the photos and had found a better way of using them to retain the images of all the places I’ve been. Sadly, that meaning was lost and they became just a coloured background.

I really enjoyed the assignment, and the technique, and will certainly try again when I have more time, trying other methods for the background, maybe using bigger photos, to see if I can produce something more meaningful.

Reference

. Joy, C. (2018),‘Fresh air: Space–time and new models for landscape painting’, Journal of Contemporary Painting, 4:1, pp. 147–70, doi: 10.1386/jcp.4.1.147_1 Available at https://doi-org.ucreative.idm.oclc.org/10.1386/jcp.4.1.147_1

. Church and White photo. available at http://alexisrockman.net/american-icons/

. Schwabsky B, Landscape Painting Now: From Pop Abstraction to New Romanticism

Bradway T, Thames & Hudson


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