Summary of The Contemporary Landscape
- martine75
- Jun 5, 2023
- 3 min read
What were the keywords?
Site, Place, Space, Time, En Plein Air, Vista, Metapainting, Myth, Beautiful, Picturesque, Sublime, Psychogeography, Flaneur, Realism, Documentary, Foreground - Middleground - Background, Found image.
What have I produced and learnt?
Link to post: Exercise 1: Places I'll Remember
Sintra
Mixed media on canvas 60 x 40 cm
Using the factual and the fictive, the imagined and the remembered to feel my way into a painting with colour mark making, found image and redaction techniques has suited my developing style.
The site and place evoke colour, light, and style.
Redaction, pattern, material and composition can change picturesque to sublime, and these use space and time to create them, for example, beautiful.
Is this a Meta painting? - I think it certainly challenges the traditional way of interpreting landscape painting.
Can I push it further with digital manipulation?
I like the circle or ellipsis structures, as my tutor observes, providing softer edges that also help with legibility, giving more space for some of the more complex or nuanced elements to survive (or exist as redactions and new works). (The below image is too blurred, though).
Eden
Collage - digital crops of mixed media on canvas.
Link to post:
Using my photographs, Japanese poets and writers, such as Matsuo Basho and woodblock artists like Walter J Phillips, I journeyed back to Mount Fuji.
Tephra.
Mixed media, encaustic wax in a tri-shaped encased glass frame.
My artistic taste isn't with figurative forms. This realisation develops my artistic identity.
I consciously avoid including tangible subjects such as animals or human figures in my artistic practice. Instead, I focus on abstract concepts: patterns, textures and ethereal themes.
As an artist, I defy the conventions of traditional landscape painting and reject the notion of conforming to any conventional artistic genre. Instead, I want my work to transcend established boundaries and forge a unique creative path.
While I strive for complexity and depth in my artwork, I try not to overburden my compositions. I must strike a harmonious balance, ensuring that the rhythm of my work remains undisturbed.
Have I disturbed the rhythm above? I think I should have kept the less is more mantra in my head.
This is a traditional foreground, middle and background piece (with insufficient elements to showcase the depth of field truly). Nevertheless, it does have depth because of the framing. A mountain but, also a myth of some description, showing and framing the awe of the mountains.
Pre-Tephra.
Mixed media, encaustic wax in a tri-shaped encased glass frame.
Link to post:
This exercise revealed that I prefer the nuanced interplay of textures, patterns, and mark-making within the landscape and highlight its specific elements.
With reflection and discernment, the implementation of digital filters that polarise the image has the effect of disrupting and veiling those elements, which, in my subjective judgment, have been inadequately rendered.
For example, the introduction of deliberate glitches and ethereal blurs in the depictions of the ice climber and the individual immersed in Venetian waters are purposefully mirrored geometrically, a diversionary tactic that adds layers.
In conclusion, I have learnt that landscape painting emerged as a popular genre in the late 18th century in the Western tradition, with artists such as Turner and Friedrich expressing their romantic views of nature through their works.
The approach to landscape painting has varied as time has progressed, ranging from creating beautiful and serene scenes to capturing slightly wild and charming landscapes or depicting awe-inspiring natural phenomena. The advent of realism in the 1850s challenged traditional landscape painting by emphasising accurate representation.
Depicting natural phenomena in landscape painting has been a way for artists to convey deeper meanings. Landscape painting has evolved and gained recognition as an important genre, pushing the boundaries of artistic expression. Artists such as Ilana Savdie and Peter Doig inspire me to imagine and blend borders. Asian landscape painting, which focuses on capturing nature's essence through calligraphic brushwork, has a rich history and intrigues me.
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