Fred Tomaselli and New Paintings.

Fred Tomaselli, Watt, 2011, photographic collage, acrylic and resin on wood

An artist whose paintings I am interested in on account of their coloured, decorative and patterned qualities are those of the painter Fred Tomaselli (1956 - ). 

'It is my ultimate aim to seduce and transport the viewer into the space of these pictures while simultaneously revealing the mechanics of that seduction.' 

www.whitecube.com/artists/fred_tomaselli/

This quote reveals my primary interest in Tomaselli's work. Tomaselli's use of pattern and colour is a tool he utilizes with which he is able to draw the viewer into his paintings. 

Fred Tomaselli, Eye, 2009, Acrylic, photo collage and resin on wood panel.

Study for Old Catton Park, Graphite and Ink on Paper, 2014, 55.5 x 55.5cm

'Fred Tomaselli's signature pieces are compelling, hybrid objects... forms implode, explode, oscillate, buzz, loop, swirl, and spiral. Actual objects, photographic representations, and painted surfaces co-exist without hierarchy on and in a single picture plane. The combined effect, neither determinably real nor fully illusionistic, is at once electrifying and destabilising.' 

www.jamescohan.com/artists/fred-tomaselli/

Fred Tomaselli, Diatonic, 1998, Datura leaves, photo collage, acrylic and resin on wood panel

Tomaselli is influenced by a number of art historical sources as well as eastern and western decorative traditions. His work is made up of a series of mesmerising patterns that appear to grow organically across his compositions. My interest in Tomaselli centers on the fashion in which he draws the viewer in via the sheer beauty of his work, whilst simultaneously offering the opportunity to go beyond it. It serves as a facilitator in order to allow the viewer to let down their guard and to step into a space of comfort which then has the opportunity to become uncomfortable. Once the viewer starts to contemplate Tomaselli's work, they may find something that’s jarring, disjointed or unexpected. It’s through this ability to shift from a place of comfort to discomfort that the possibility of transcendence may occur.

As I discussed in a previous blog entry I made up a series of circular panels as a way of moving away from my previous experimentation with collage and to start to think about creating a new series of paintings, loosely based upon some of my collage studies.

In making these new paintings I attempted to utilize some of the positive aspects from the large tondo pieces which I created for the interim show. Unlike the two previous paintings which were based around the invasive species imagery, my intention for these pieces was for them to rotate around a central point, so as to create an impression of movement and a sense of flow. 

'Rilke wrote: 'These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.'  Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 1994

As reference points for the paintings I created two new collages, using Old Catton Park and Sheringham Park as my source material once more. In creating these pieces I felt that it was important to create a surface which in a similar fashion to Tomaselli's canvasses made use of pattern as a way to capture the viewers attention.

Collage Study, for painting based on Sheringham Park, 37.5 x 37.5cm

Collage Study, for painting based on Old Catton Park, 37.5 x 37.5cm

As with my previous collages I created these studies using photographs taken whilst visiting the parks, which I cut up burned and pasted together in order to create the fragmented and disjointed circular compositions. In attempting to turn these collages into paintings I considered the decorative effect that Tomaselli had achieved in his paintings and considered how it would be possible to recreate this in my own work, as a tool in order to capture the gaze of the onlooker and draw them into the pieces. By making use of collage within my compositions, which had been both fragmented and burned I hoped to break up the surface of the compositions whilst I hoped that the burned areas would have the visual effect of creating a negative space, which would also act as a way of changing the visual dynamic and interpretation of the imagery.

Old Catton Park tondo, oil on mdf, 39 x 39cm

Sheringham Park tondo, oil on mdf, 39 x 39cm

I swiftly realised after creating the paintings that although there was a certain sense of movement due to the circular nature of the pieces which combined to a degree with the swirling areas of colour, this was also accompanied by more of a static feel on account of the  application of paint in a flat, block like and uniform manner. I felt that the lack of movement was also compounded by the way in which I had placed a coloured border around the central composition. Rather than accentuating it, it felt clumsy, stifling and swallowing up the central imagery whilst simultaneously making the pieces appear more lifeless by nullifying the compositions.

One of the central components of Tomaselli's work which I feel really effectively adds to the sense of movement, decoration and drama within his paintings is the fashion with which he juxtaposes bright patterned areas of colour alongside blacker negative areas upon his canvasses. This juxtaposition of the two sets of opposing colouration help to create an effective sense of contrast and also an optical sense of movement meaning that the patterns do not remain still, but contain a sense of depth and life. 

Fred Tomaselli,  Geode, 2006 Leaves, photocollage, Acrylic, gouache and resin on wood panel

In Tomaselli's painting Geode, 2006, he effectively places his central motif of exploding forms and colours upon a black, patterned backdrop. The result of doing so means that the shapes and patterns appear to simultaneously recede and expand upon the canvas whilst creating the additional feeling of movement and the impression that the viewer is looking at a 3-dimensional rather than 2-dimensional painterly surface made up of a hybrid of interlinked forms and shapes.

Sheringham Park tondo distressed, oil on mdf, 39 x 39cm

Old Catton Park tondo distressed, oil on mdf, 39 x 39cm

In order to create an added sense of movement within my paintings and as a way to break up the uniform areas of colour, I distressed the edges of the composition with sandpaper in order to reduce the uniform nature of the colored border as well as creating the visual impression that the pieces were dissolving and receding at the edges. I felt that this not only helped to create the sense of movement that I had hoped for but also a sense of recession and expansion within the central colored section of the composition. 

In conceiving these two paintings I hoped that they would serve as finished pieces and as a way of resolving many of the issues which I have been dealing with within this unit. As with my previous two paintings I believe that they are only partially successful in achieving my aims. One of the more successful aspects of the invasive species paintings was the fashion in which I was able to apply the paint to the canvas in a looser and less formulaic fashion in order to create a surface which contained within it a sense of movement and non-uniform pattern. 

The two pieces that I have created for this unit are self contained on account of the fashion that they function autonomously within their circular format and rotate around a central point, however the fashion in which I have applied the paint has meant that they do not have the same sense of movement or ambiguity instead appearing flatter and more resolved. Distressing the surface of the pieces has created more of a sense of ambiguity as well as adding the sensation of slippage and flux. Going forward I feel that it would be interesting to combine all three of these elements including a fluid use of paint alongside more resolved areas, whilst also experimenting by distressing areas of the composition. I feel that this would really help to construct a surface that worked on a number of levels to create a sense of fluidity and change in order to avoid being overly formulaic, resolved and contrived.