As discussed in a previous post I have experimented with different ways of portraying the landscape, within my practice by using the circular tondo format, using bright colouration as well as abstracting it to a point so that it has moved to a state whereby it appears to be very far removed from any particular reference to the landscape instead having the appearance of something else that may not have its origins within a particular place.
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Coastal Landscape Study, 2015, Oil on MDF, 70 x 70cm |
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Figment of the Imagination, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
Although this has been valid and necessary experimentation, I feel that the work that is most effective with regards to my original research statement in which I set out to explore the crossover between between place and memory has been that that explicitly references the places I have been using as subject matter. The end results of this experimentation have contained a direct reference to the places I have been exploring which would be obvious to the viewer.
Similarly as mentioned within my previous blog, the issue of colour has continued to be an overriding concern within this project. My natural inclination being to amplify and exagerrate it's use within my practice. One aspect that I feel has been particulary effective has been the fashion in which I have been able to introduce a sense of distortion via the scanning process. In analysing this I think that it has had the effect of creating a sense of dislocation which has been more effective than the use of bright non-naturalistic colour characteristic of much of my experimentation during this unit, which has had more of a hallucinatory quality to it.
Another aspect of the work that I feel has been partially effective, but hoped to expand upon was the crossover and juxtaposition between the spontaneous use of paint alongside the more graphic silkscreen printed imagery, which has helped to create a greater sense of tension and drama within the work.
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Drift I, 2015, Silkscreen and Gloss on MDF, 29 x 40cm |
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Irregular Fluctuation I, Silkscreen and Gloss on MDF, 25 x 36cm |
With all of these aspects in mind I set about creating a set of four new silk screens, in which I referenced the landscape of the walk I had undertaken close to my parents house, a walk I had undertaken many times as a child and throughout my adult life. With my intention being of silkscreening on top of a painted surface I mixed a series of colours which corresponded to the original photographs that I was using as my subject matter.
I experimented with a number of different images which I scanned and subjected to the distortion process that I had been utilising within much of my earlier studies, before arriving at four pieces that I felt were the most effective.
The four final images that I chose were composed of a mixture of vertical and horizontal distortion. I was particular pleased with the fact that these images more than my previous experimentation explicitly referenced and could be traced back to the landscape from where the imagery had been derived. The distortion helped to create a strong visual language that this was a landscape that was fragmenting, disintegrating as well as creating a visual sense of displacement and disconnection. I felt the most effective areas were those in which the distortion began to change and adjust familiar elements such as the telegraph poles, trees and vegetation so that they started to have the appearance of something less grounded within the real world, whilst simultaneously recongnisable as something with an origin in the landscape.
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Now is Past (after John Clare) study, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 40 x 70cm |
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Landscape (a lost object), 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 40 x 70cm |
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Disconnect, Study, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 40 x 70cm |
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Undulation study, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 40 x 70cm |
Initially I experimented by using the paints that I had mixed from the original photographs taken from my walk. I silkscreened the four images on top of these painted surfaces, a selection of which I have shown above.
In analysing the results of this experimentation, I was pleased with the juxtaposition of the printed and painted surfaces, which I felt genenerated an interesting contrast. Alongside this I felt that the used of naturalistic colours was also effective as it referenced the places from which I had derived the imagery. Similarly the distortion that had been created within the original scans transferred across well onto the printed surfaces changing the nature of the places that I was depicting and adding another interesting dynamic to the work. I was pleased with the areas of the composition in which the paint appeared to be bleeding and smudging outside of the picture plane.
However I felt that there were a number of ways in which these images were not effective. The painted areas were quite crude and whilst effective I felt that the brush marks needed to be refined in order to be less apparent. Similarly although my use of colour was more effective in terms of depicting the landscape that I was referencing I still felt that the colours were too heavy, whilst the use of black ink for the silkscreened areas represented too great a contrast alongside the painterly areas. It felt although the printed areas sat on top of the painted areas without there being enough interchange between the two different states.