Following on from the pen and ink drawings that I created, I was hoping to create a series or works combining both the linear, graphic and controlled qualites of the drawings by turning them into silk screen prints alongside a much looser and spontaneous aesthetic via the introduction of paint. As well as marrying the printed and painterly surfaces I was also intrigued as to what the introduction of colour would do to the look and the feel of the images.
I was interested in various accounts of walking that I had been researching which culminated in the walker experiencing hallucinations creating a distorted perception of reality, place and the landscape. The account of John Clare escaping from his incarceration and walking back to his home resulted in him hallucinating due dehydration, exhaustion and a lack of food. In 1991 the artist Hamish Fulton whose work emphasises the action of walking in the landscape walked all 120 miles of the Pilgrim's Way without sleep in midwinter: 'I started to hallucinate,' he says, 'A small blue bag on the path suddenly turned into a turkey.'
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Hamish Fulton, The Pilgrims Way, 1991, Black & White photograph and text.
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In keeping with my research aims concerning memory and the interface between memory submerged within the landscape and those of the walker passing through I felt that it would be appropriate to re-use and utilise the large ink drawings as a way of expanding upon this process. I liked the idea that by subjecting a visual rendering of a landscape to a number of processes both digitial and manual including photography, drawing, scanning and printing, the subject matter changes, becoming dislocated from it's original anchoring within reality instead starting to represent something else more abstract and less defined, this tied into some of the research that I had been undertaking in relation to a hallucination as something arising from the absence of any external reality. Using bright, non naturalistic colours which I mono silk screened onto the paper as a starting point, I repeated the process of moving whilst scanning the pen and ink drawings, which I silk screened on top of the coloured base.
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| Transcendental Experience, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Untitled, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Untitled, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Trace and Apparition, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Figment of the Imagination, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Hallucination, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Diffuse, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Turbulence, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Memory, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Fragmentation and Deconstruction, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Sub-Conscious Process, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
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| Dissolution, 2015, Silkscreen and Acrylic on Paper, 20 x 35cm |
Following on from a group critique in which I presented these pieces there were a number of observations that was generated. A number of comments centred on the fact that the prints appeared to resemble a series of sound waves, or seismic waves, defined as waves of energy that travel through the earth's layers, resulting from an earthquake or volcano that gives out low-frequency acoustic energy.
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| A seismic wave generated from an erupting volcano. |
Comments included the fact that the the colours referenced did not appear to connect to the place from which they were being referenced and that it would be interesting to see what the visual outcome would be if the colours were linked back to Brancaster Staithe in order to see whether this enhanced the sense of that place. The use of non naturalistic colours was noted as creating more of a decorative feel.
On another level it was also suggested that by using non naturalistic colours alongside the black printed marks it had a repellant and disruptive feel generating the visual effect of a migraine. It was also noted that it would be interesting to see what the effect would be of exhibiting them all together in one seamless line without gaps between them, in order to create a sense of a loop so that they could be interpreted as a continual stream or sequence of information.
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| Mock up of work displayed as a continual sequence. |
Another interesting observation related to the fashion in which the spaces within the compositions were being utilised as a way of representing either the land or the sky, and the fact that it would be useful to attempt to manipulate this space in order to see how the pieces might look if either of these were removed or their proportions were adjusted.
One of the final points that was noted in relation to my work was about the particular space of Burnham Overy Staithe and the idea of attempting to go back in time or revisit a place containing memories from the past. It was suggested that via the process of revisiting and reconnecting with a particular place and the memories stored there attempting to physically depict this would be more effective if it was done in an abstract, hypothetical fashion, rather than in a figurative and representational manner.
'With the painting the inspiration comes from the process of the work itself... like music (making the work) is an emotional experience. It's a visual language and it's almost impossible to put words to it.' (huckmagazine, 2015)
An artist, whose works deals with ideas around dislocation and alienation who subjects his imagery to number of different processes as well as working across a variety of mediums is the artist Christopher Wool. Christopher Wool's recent paintings address the experience of bringing us closer to an understanding of the creative dislocation we share with a metropolis we know we can neither inhabit or escape. A sprayed line of enamel covers a canvas, while on another canvas the same looping line recurs as a screen print. The painting is always relocated or dislocated and systematically amputated from the moment and the place of work. Wool photographs a line in order to create a silkscreen that repeats it however many times, the colours in higher and lower resolution, introducting an additional level of disorientation.
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| Christopher Wool, Untitled, 2009, Enamel, Silkscreen, Spray Paint on Paper |
This systematic repetition across mediums creates the effect of dislocation and alienation, allowing for any number of transformative possibilities. Via the use of printing Wool exploits the print's power of repetition meaning that new and different marks and gestures are created from the middle of the work. As the work builds up and accumulates it is simultaneously lost, buried and decomposed. Images of painterly information are cycled through a process causing gestures to drift and return outside of each other, recombining elsewhere with others.
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| Christopher Wool, Untitled, 2009, Enamel, Silkscreen, Spray Paint on Paper. |
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| Christopher Wool, 2001, Minor Mishap, Enamel and Silkscreen on Linen |
huckmagazine (2015) Christopher Wood (internet) available at www.huckmagazine.com/art-and-culture/art-2/christopher-wool/
Sacks, O (2013) 'Hallucinations.' London: Picador; Main Market Ed. edition.
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