Paintscapes?
Most recently I have given up figurative narration in preference for abstracted landscapes. The past few months I have desired to build a new relationship to paint, color and process that affords me opportunity to develop my own sense, for lack of a better term, of non-representational painting. I crave a wide spectrum of color and organic open shapes, in addition to a variety of marks speaking the language of paint. However, an abstract/figuration dichotomy is ultimately false and so working from an initial image propels a process. I take great pleasure in painting observationally-- you are excused from making choices and can mindlessly copy your perception, especially if using a photo reference. However, knowing i will paint over my little landscape study allows me to work with a measure of abandonment and levity. Using gradients, scumbles, dry brush, quick or slow strokes i compose colors and shapes, attempting to retain the underneath landscape as a negative space. Here is one before and after shot.
“Something significant has happened when land can be perceived as landscape”
We are already divorced from nature when we begin to represent it through art. A landscape occurs when art happens to land, we make aesthetic choices which positions nature as an object of pleasure, or too reflect our human drama. In making 'abstracted landscapes' I aim to show the landscape painting genre as already artifice, a pure cultural product rather than a reaction to nature. However, nature is the ultimate sublime and genius of life, which I think produces that artistic impulse to make and play with form.
I have a series of dramatic landscape photographs I shot on film that have been filed away for a decade. My photos were kept in storage in a friends basement for four years and were damaged by moisture, which fortuitously created some interesting painterly effects. To further emphasize an image/material contrast I have been painting Richter style directly onto these film photos, or over the glazing.
