light and shade. round 2

leads to this. in unspecified dimensions.

to see the sea... just

3 observations in landscape (ii)

bums... i made the mistake of writing post iii before post ii and inbetween the two i fell into the night stars, morning mist and a chestnut bud and thus disappeared momentarily.

but stars, mist and buds were all on queue for short and sweet observation on landscape (ii).

it concerns james turrell's minimalism of light and perception (as discussed in more length in an earlier post). two quotes stick in my mind from my web trawl even if the source didn't (sorry!).

quote 1 paraphrases as james turrell is one of the great romantics in his search for light in the (american) landscape.

quote 2 paraphrases as james turrell with his skyscapes and installations does want to take us back to the stone age.

out of this my observation (ii) arises:

a minimalism of form is required. only with this, the limitations of landscape can be transcended. such minimalism - if it works with light (and shade) and our perception of this - will be contemporary, as in the here and now (as indeed Turrell's work is). nature and our experience of this is one of presence not tradition.

is this romantic? is working with light and perception romantic? i wonder....

in light

there is (no) matter.

this one - like bethan huws - was in my diary since december. and with attempt number three, i not only saw the matter that light makes, but so did my parents.

before we arrived, we laughed at the arrogant marketing that the City of Wolfsburg - Hitler's car city where the Beetle was first mass-produced - was of course with the Turrell's Wolfsburg Project the site of Turrell's largest installation in an exhibition space:

the main installation, Bridget's Bardo is a ganzfeld piece of two spaces that merge from one into the other: the viewing and the sensing space, separated by a sensor, you must not step into the viewing space. light changes and all the while you sense the view and wonder what that space is in front of you, a wall, a cube or simply nothing in colours that change as the light changes.

and you wonder and wonder. the separating between viewing and sensing space are sharp corners in space. but behind or in front of the planes become depths and you see nothing but colour. all around you and in so doing colour becomes you.

at the back of the installations are two rectangles, one at the top where the bridge lead down, one at the bottom where steps lead down to the floor below. of distinct and separate colour they appear as planes again, not as openings.

small groups of people spend ten minutes as light and are encouraged to go again, as many do. second time round i begin to see some shadows, not on the walls nor ceiling, but on the floor, looking back into the piece.

how crucial shadows are in helping you orientate yourself and to grasp dimensions, forward and backward and upright.

how do you mark light in the absence of shadows and spatial demarcations with any thing other than that pure light?

what form has fog and nothing than the absence of form?

the exhibition continues with some smaller installations, one (milk run iii, a spectral wedgework, 2002) operating in darkness with dark orange light and your perception as it plays a myriad of tricks on you; and plenty of illustrations of the roden crater project and some large scale aquatints Turrell made with experiments of light deprivation and selective openings of panels in the mendota hotel in california. here, the light modelled geometric objects which he captures on the aquatints. i found a link with images of this aquatint series, First Light (1989-90) at this site here.

and i thought i'd add this video here too: about another skyspace and roden crater. enjoy!

Let's disappear with Turner

JMW Turner, Venice with the Salute, c1844
Oil on Canvas, Tate Britain

How about into this piece of art?


As the lady next to us said: 'You can't possibly see what's in that'.

Or can you?



And in a blink, he, it and I are gone. Nowhere to be found.


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More wintery siblings

Primaries WIP, oil on canvas,
80x70cm

... to the earlier posted Haze. These two are not quite finished, they are slightly larger in scale (80x70cm) but worked with the same palette.

Little to say about them just now, so: Hello to the Works In Progress of Alongside and Primaries (I even used the thesaurus for some online playtime with titles).

Alongside WIP, oil on canvas,
80x70 cm

The canvas of Primaries was in an earlier life a very mishapen life painting in oil, so I am liking it already much better. These canvasses are not that much larger to the previous ones (80x70 to 65x60) but that extra bit of space is making a huge difference to how it feels - well, both in lugging the canvasses around, but more importantly to the painting process itself.

There's one more of this series - the outsider, ugly duckling and difficult child... will introduce it shortly...

The difference a bit of sunshine makes...

Continuing with some applied simple observations, here's a rough and ready sketch from Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire from the weekend. Rolling landscapes on moleskine (with some incidental acrylics thrown in), while we were waiting for our lunch.

Ross-on-Wye, 21x14 cm
Graphite and neopastel in Moleskine

Just have a look at the two reference photos... one without sunshine and one with... It's the kind of really simple observations, but again: captured on photo just amplifies the difference not only the shades make to the whole scene but also the difference in light and tone of tree lines and water reflections.

How much texture do you need?

I have written much recently about the importance textures have for me in paintings.
In fact, when I begun to move away from pastels to paint, I was keen on working with oils precisely for their ability to layer heavily and thickly. In fact, one of the first purchases for my acrylics (which were the paint I started with, rather than oils) was heavy impasto medium.

In any case, talking about textures also made me realise that it's more subtle than 'a lot of texture'. In fact, with may heavy layering and impasto I often find I lose the interest in some paintings - e.g., while I admired Leon Kossoff's drawings at the National Gallery, I was rather quickly moving away from some of his oil paintings.


Similarly, Strindberg's abstract and evocative land- and seascapes are heavily textured but... hm... I dunno... I haven't quite figured out what it is about texture/too much texture, but my first hunch is a question of opaqueness and how much light is coming through the painting. Strindberg's waves and clouds are very dark and brooding, at the same time he seems to work liberally with white to lighten his darks, yet it seems flat and opaque.

August Strindberg, Stormy Sea, Broom Buoy
Oil on Board, 1892
Nationalmuseum Stockholm

Does the light of the canvas balance texture?

There's a question to contemplate for a bit... or maybe it's a different question that needs asking...

Virtual museum visits

August Strindberg, Town Oil on Canvas, 1903 Nationalmuseum Stockholm

... to the Stockholm Nationalmuseum at night introduced me to some new painters. I have already briefly mentioned August Strindberg's experimental photography in a previous post. He has also painted a series of dark and brooding seascapes - high waves, dark clouds and the emotions flying all over the place. - There's much more to say about his landscapes... but above is a brief taster, and here's another one:

August Strindberg, Stormy Sea, Buoy without Top mark
Oil on Board, 1892
Stockholm Nationalmuseum

The second Swedish painter I discovered is Eugene Jansson - also painting from around the late 19c, Jansson produced a whole series of evocative, enticing and melancholic cityscapes and landscapes. Many of them in various shades of blue, they are at the same time full of light and lightness.

This one here just made my new desktop background: those icey blues just sing even in their 72dpi flatness.

Eugene Jansson, Sunrise over the Rooftops. Motiv from Stockholm
Oil on Canvas, 1903
Nationalmuseum Stockholm

And here's another one:

Eugene Jansson, Hornsgatan at Night
Oil on Canvas, 1902
Nationalmuseum Stockholm

Thank you, J.! Such good suggestions!

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