Taking the Orange Landscapes to the Next Stage

As the experiment that was the flood plain series came to a semi-finished state I began to see other forms within the work. The strong shapes and colours as a whole were strongly competing in the whole space and I could see that there were potential abstract forms and landscapes that I could take further, smaller less combative groups of more abstract sections.

This was a process I did with the field paintings, where I reduced the plant filaments to the abstracted landscapes that I call the Defragmentation Paintings.

Picking out further landscapes in the orange flood plain series resulted in a process that is shown here in this book where I selected sections from the paintings and then zoom in and then rework these in a larger scale.

The size of these newly selected regions of the original paintings I feel is important. I’m currently working at making these larger still.

My Developing Practice

The process that I have been developing in my painting has largely come from one photograph. I had interpreted this photograph as a large painting. Some elements of this painting worked and others needed further development but overall it opened up a dialogue that allowed me to take the route I am now following in my research.

 

The relationship between the original printed photograph and the painting it became made me consider how to use light within my paintings. The aspect that worked was the high contrast zone through the middle of the picture, showing the plants ablaze with light and creating contorted shapes. These forms and patterns seem to move and float as if imbued with some kind of energy.

 
I began to sketch these individual forms, foliage of the plants, but not their original design more a manipulated retelling of something that was living. From the static viewpoint the painting created the shapes presented abstracted forms that seem to naturally connect and of course this is because in reality they do but with the high contrast light behind them they become something more, yet retain something of a natural gravity.

 
I began to question how I could interpret this light behind these organic forms by looking at its

impact upon the edge. But what I could see was a type of halo and that this almost magical presence created and a movement and dance. What I'm trying to say is these transparent edges were doing something exciting to these forms.

My sketches became paintings on board and these picked out some of the abstract forms from the master painting, or/and photograph, and then I began to add layers of white, some of them breaking the edge of these forms and in my own way manipulating these natural shapes with my own light.
 
But as I explored this process, the results of which I was very pleased with, I hit a level where if I was be on and say four or five layers of white the plant forms would almost be completely engulfed by this white light, or paint. So I naturally came to a stage when the painting in the sense was completed if I wanted to retain some of the original abstracted forms.

As an aside to this main research I have begun collecting other representations of this phenomena in life. I have been in a number of locations where I have seen similar glowing bodies set against very bright backgrounds. For example figures on a beach, up by the waves, the sun very bright in the background. These human forms have become manipulated by this extreme light. This could be another area of development for my practice, especially considering the paintings I've done already existed in the landscape.

Processing Light in my Paintings

I'm breaking up the elements of the photo, potentially isolating them. These elements consist of a number of grounds and the silhouetting effect of the foreground.

By doing so I exam the edge. This edge is created by making the elements their own entities. If the foreground is isolated how does it connect to the patches of light in the background.

This edge has become of interest. This is where the light in the selected photographs has created a glare effect that seems to show a hallow around the object. Many of these objects are living and appear as if on fire in a white hot spotlight.

I have been layering the thinner white paint, the bright over exposed light, on this range of shapes I have found in the source material photographs.

I see these as research for larger paintings that potentially will include other aspects of the landscape the origin of these forms.

These are done using oil paint.

Example of How Peter Doig takes from Mass Media for elements of his Painting

While talking at the Slade in 2015-16 in their contemporary art lectures series one of the slides Peter Doig presents demonstrates how he can take from a range of media sources including local newspapers.

It shows a Trinidadian Bay and the reenactment of the arrival of Christopher Columbus. The background is dream like and Doig himself has said that the landscapes during this period of painting were Gauguin like, a painter who much relied on his memory to paint, and have dream like qualities. But mounted in this exaggerated scene is the boat from the cutting on the right. He has quite simply ripped it from the newspaper and then painted it into the image as the main feature.

Doig has obviously connected with this image and it was one that for him was strong enough to prompt it's inclusion in a painting. There can clearly be seen here some connections with these invaders, so to speak, with Doig's own experiences. He very much wondered how he would be perceived when he moved to Trinidad and this image might well be an exploration of these concepts, although he has often said that he was welcomed to the island, where as the photo shows an invader.

It also demonstrates the ease at which Doig approaches the sources for his paintings. He's not afraid to take what he needs from his own daily consumption of media. A newspaper cutting is very easily pulled into a major painting and the idea is given prominence if it's significance is judge as being important.

Canopy Invertebrate Sorting Images as Inspiration

While exploring the Natural History museum I came across a station call the 'Specimen Preparation Area', where the microscope view of one of the research scientists could be viewed on a monitor. The board explained, " Canopy Invertebrate Sorting - We are sorting and identifying Invertebrate samples that have been collected high in the canopy of the tropical rainforest trees (around 40m above the ground). We have to extract the insects, spiders and other invertebrates from the detritus that is also in the sample. Then we sort them into groups for later analysis. Many of the invertebrates are microscopic (less than 0.5mm) in size! We have to be very precise and careful picking them up and moving them around."

You could see the scientist  moving bits of insect and dirt floating in the solution which were lit from behind. It made them glow, some of the thinner particles becoming transparent, their edges alight. It made me think of the plants in the field that I use for my paintings. An over exposed image of a form in nature. The process I have been following with some of my sketches has been to magnify them, increasing their size, very much like what I now saw at the exhibition station which was designed to show a scientific process.

I also like the way they move and filmed a series of shorts I'll cut together as an experiment. It occurs to me that there is a sound that could match the images especially when the tweezers come into shot, potentially a metal sound and I'm interested in making some samples using such implements. Then putting them over the video as a sound track.

Another interesting aspect that I observed was that because the insect and dirt was floating in a solution it created a three dimensional effect. I'm thinking maybe I could set up a series of transparent troughs that I could stack and photograph from above. This could inspire my paintings and drawings but also be a work in its own right.

Three Key Elements of my Work

1) The Use of Film

Each painting or drawing derives from a film still taken from one of my walks.

I work from a printed and copy that in it’s self interprets the colour and form.

A series of Lenses manipulating the light.

2) The Foreground

The Foreground is exaggerated

The aim here is to bring the viewer into the image

It’s also part of the abstraction process

3) Light Effects

Has evolved from the filming process and the over exposed nature of simply looking towards the sun through the undergrowth

The shapes become abstract