Danesgate Synth

Jan Dibbets: 2

Dutch artist Jan Dibbets made these photo collages  for the Musée Zadkine in Paris in 1994. The use of photography by Jan Dibbets, it is argued, “is abstract” or “rather non-realistic” (Fuchs and Moure, 1991 p.13). This is “because it does interrupt the visual process of perception by imposing precise forms” (Fuchs and Moure, 1991 p.13). The aim of these photoworks is “to ‘deconstruct’ the consistent appearance of visual space conventionally represented in photography”, by multiplying viewpoints, fragmenting exposure times and grading shades of light” (Fuchs and Moure, 1991 p.181).

Sources:
Fuchs and Moure, (1991) Jan Dibbets,  Interior Light: Works on Architecture 1969-1990 Barcelona: Ediciones Polâ ̧grafa .

John Stezaker

John Stezaker once said “so much emerges from what I destroy” (Buck, L., 2011 p.36).  This could have come from the mouth of Gordon Matta-Clark. Stezaker’s collages seem to come out of the surrealist imagination: they are fragmentary and dream-like and created from found images. These dream-like and unsettling narratives drew from film stills, glamorous publicity shots from the golden age of Hollywood and postcards. 

  John Stezaker Untitled (For Angus) Film Still Collage II, 2009  

Old Mask IV 2006

Mask XXXV, 2007

Carla Sorell notes that “in the Mask series old portraits are mixed with found postcards, placed precisely over the face in such a way that the void created by the landscape become somehow representative of the subjects psyche” (Sorrell, C., 2011 p.21).

Sources:

Buck, L., (2011), “So much emerges from what I destroy” Art Newspaper 20 No220 Jan 2011 p.36

Sorrel, C (2011) “The Face Beneath” Crafts no228 Ja/F p.20-21

Doug and Mike Starn

The Starn Twins’ artworks are “not appropriation photographs designed to deconstruct- or expose the context in which the original art was made” (Papadakis, 1989 p.61). The objects produced are “drained of its original significance” (Papadakis, 1989 p.61). Doug and Mike Starn’s work seem to be part of the so lat century, millennium burnout. The two have so “internalized post-modernism as to be virtually free of it, liberated, that is, to the exercise  post modern license without being over determined or terrorized by its ideological excess” (Wheeler, 1991 p.335).

Still Life 1983

The Building 1985

They do recycle art history, like postmodernism but they offer something more positive and “more humanistic” with “richer imagery that elicit feeling and fantasy” (Wheeler, 1991 p.336). Doug and Mike Starn’s work is made up of “elaborately layered collages cobbled together with Scotch Magic Tape” (Wheeler, 1991 p.336).

Rookery 1985

Double Stark Portrait in Swirl 1985-6. Toned silver print with tape, 8'3" square.

The fragmented results are fascinating like a “photographic Cubism with the geometric patterning of the individual sheets of paper, fracturing and distancing the underlying ‘picture’ in much the same way that the lambent planes of an Analystical Cubsim jostle a representational world that supposedly lies beneath” (Papadakis, 1989, p.61).

Triple Christ  toned silver print with Scotch tape, aluminium, wood, glue and glass 1986 

 Untitled (Large Christ) 1987, silver print, tape. film, glass, wood, 228.6 x 609.6 cm

Blue Lisa 1987, toned silver print 215.9x134.6cm

Sources:

Papadakis, (1989) New York New Art, Art & Design, Academy Editions London/New York:  St. Martin’s Press

Wheeler, (1991)  Art Since Mid-Century, London: Thames and Hudson

N.B. Some of the early titles seem wrong to me. I hope to research further and discover more details.

 

A Note about the Work

The imagery produced so far depicts solid mass: stone, concrete and metal, but in a way that it is presented as an open construction of planes.

More synths.... same building.

Here are my second series of photosynths depicting Lincoln Cathedral in various states of deconstruction. The synthed photo works remind me of scenes from Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera where architectures is divided by trick cinema photography

Some of these examples look cubist, but there is an element of dynamism that we would see in futurism. The above image is too extremely distorted and splayed for my purposes. However, some elements of the juxtaposition are quite interesting. This software does come up with some very odd combinations.

 

The above start to look like a fusion of medieval  architectecture and constructivism: Matta-Clark as a medieval anarchist perhaps or Protestand reformer. from the days of the Reformation.

A Medieval Malevich?

Cezanne's Studio

Above is a photograph of Cézanne's studio in Aix-en-Provence is described by Robert Hughes as "one of the sacred places of the modern mind, a reliquary" (Hughes, R. 1991 p.124).

In 1906, just before he died Cézanne wrote a letter to his son:

"I must tell you that as a painter I am becoming more clear-sighted before nature . . .
Here on the bank of the river the motifs multiply, the same subject seen from a different angle offers
subject for study for the most powerful interest for months without changing place, by turning now
more to the right, now more to the left" (Rewald, 1995, p. 327).

On the 21st August 1906 he wrote a letter to Emile Bernard:

"Now, being  old, nearly 70 years, the sensations of colour, which give the light, are for me the reason for the abstractions which do not allow me to cover my canvas entirely nor to pursue the delimitation of the objects where their points of contact are fine and delicate; from which it results that my image or picture is incomplete"  (Harrison and Wood, 2001 p.39)

Sources:

Harrison, C., and Wood, P., Art in Theory 1900-1990 Oxford: Blackwells.

Hughes, R., The Shock of the New London: Thames and Hudson

Rewald, John (ed. 1995), Paul Cézanne, Letters New York: Da Capo Press.

Cezanne

Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire 1885-7

The more I look at the new photographic joiners I have produced recently, the more Cezanne is called to mind. I have already discussed cubism and Cezanne, has be rarely referred to, apart from during a discussion of Diebenkorn. “Cezanne is famous for saying that any idiot can make deep space” Gilbert-Rolfe reminds us, and “that it is already deep”. The task then “of the artist is to carve out that space- an oxymoron that exactly describes Cezanne’s general practice” (Gilbert-Rolfe, 1995 p. 91).  Although the strategy of the photo-joiners seems radically different from the aims and ambitions of the first project, the formal qualities of the photographic pieces seem similar to some of Cezanne’s pieces. Cezanne’s aims have some similarities to my own. Cezanne according to Norbert Lynton “spoke as though painting were a desperately difficult matter of capturing ‘little’ sensations’ and disposing them on a surface, not to imitate nature so much as to construct an image that would be ‘parallel to nature’” (Lynton, 2003 p.23). Unlike Impressionism Cezanne’s art “is not concerned with light” (Lynton, 2003 p.23). Cezanne’s attention is on “capturing the subjects before him to show their physical presence and also the spatial relationships and tensions between them” (Lynton, 2003 p.23).

Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire 1904-6.

The emphasis “was on seeing” (Lynton, 2003 p.23) and I wondered whether this was fully the case with my own work. So, Cezanne avoids the mere “retinal scanning of the Impressionists” and engages “with the complex process by which we relate ourselves to the work physically and spiritually” (Lynton, 2003 p.23).

Cezanne’s work is a recording of forms through the juxtaposition of small planes or facets. Like Cubism it is a mosaic of experiences. A lot of abstract art emerges from Cezanne, but Cezanne can never be the father of abstraction. What Cezanne gives us however is “a process of seeing” (Hughes, 1991 p.18). The critic Barbara Rose is quoted as saying in a different context, the statement; “This is what I see” , is replaced by the question: “Is this what I see?” (Hughes, 1991 p.18). What we see in a Cezanne is a record of hesitation and doubt. 

Sources:

Gilbert-Rolfe, J. (1995) Beyond Piety: Critical Essays on the Visual Arts 1986-1993, New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Hudson, J., (2010) "Richard Diebenkorn"

http://digitalimagingandphotography.blogspot.com/2010/02/richard-diebenkorn.html

Hudson, J., (2010) "Diebenkorn and Cezanne" 

http://digitalimagingandphotography.blogspot.com/2010/03/diebenkorn-and-cezanne.html

Hughes, R., (1991) The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change London: Thames and Hudson

Lynton, N., (2003) The Story of Modern Art London: Phaidon

  

New Synths

 Here are some new experimental Photosynths using 250 photographs of Lincoln Cathedral.

The first looks like a great medieval city, a utopian dream.

This one looks like a Medieval replay of a cubist composition.

Jayne Jones: New work and New Exhibition 'Material Matters" 22 June-30 July, 2011

 Jayne Jones - Our greater Scheme for Happness - Mixed Media on Canvas - Size 90cm x 90cm

The artist Jayne Jones has a new show of abstract paintings at the Duckett & Jeffrys Gallery in Malton from the 22nd June until 30th July. I have watched her style and approach develop from the early-mid nineties from mixed media/collage  to  acrylic and oil, to  industrial paint. These works featured here are produced using mixed media; oil pigment, industrial paint and resin.

 Jayne Jones - Where Effort & Form Disappear - Mixed Media on Canvas - Size 400cm x 210cm

In the essay "Experiments in Painting"  by David Sweet he states that Jayne's interest in experimentation "stems from her interest in material processes that involve chance and unpredictable outcomes" (Sweet, D, ND).

Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea (1952)

Alpha-Pi, 1960
Morris Louis (American, 1912–1962)
Acrylic on canvas

102 1/2 x 177 in. (260.4 x 449.6 cm)

Puddle Painting: Mars Black
Ian Davenport 2009
40 1/2 x 31 in / 103 x 79 cm
acrylic paint on aluminium, mounted on aluminium panel

This is what was said of her work at the James Freeman Gallery: "while her practice is strongly indebted to important figures in abstraction such as Ian Davenport and Morris Louis, Jayne Jones articulates these references with a very feminine, and sometimes sensual, undercurrent that makes her work distinctive – many of the more figurative suggestions that seem to randomly appear as a result of her process seems to cohere around ideas of womanhood, which in turn makes an initially impersonal approach to painting seem extremely personal and private. In this respect her work contributes to the cannon of process painting, which is a result of her sustained commitment to experimentation and exploration in the medium".

Is her work closer then to the colour field painting of say Helen Frankenthaler?

Duckett & Jeffreys Gallery

2 Old Maltongate

Malton

YO17 7EG

http://www.duckettandjeffreys.com/

Tatlin

Many of the shapes that photography is forced into by Photosynthing recalls the abstraction of constructivism. Featured here is a  Tatlin, or at least a reconstruction by Martyn Chalk. The work is Corner Relief from 1915. The reconstruction was made in 1982 (there may be more than one reconstruction of this particular sculpture as I have seen one dated 1979 and another 1980). Is not the title Corner Counter-Relief, a term that Talin adopted in 1914, "as if to signal a dialectical advance in his constructions since they extended from the wall" to act as a "counter" to architecture, painting and sculpture (Foster et.al, 2004 p. 127).

 Tatlin's work was informed by Picasso's cubist collages and sculptures and constructions. Tatlin would use  "proletariat stuff of the workshop- wood, scraps of iron and copper, wire and rope, string and nails" ( Weston, R., 1996 p. 146).

Sources:

Foster et.al, (2004) Art Since 1900, London: Thames and Hudson

Weston, R., (1996) Modernism London: Phaidon.

Dave Whatt: 2

Hi all,

The website listed in his bog entry from 7 June 2010 is incorrect. His MySpace pages seemed to have vanished.

I am currently following his daily blog at http://davewhatt.wordpress.com/. His music is available on his Soundcloud.


He is also on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/DaveWhatt

John Harper: 2

John Harper: From Light, section 4, 'Gordale 4 days', 1997
600cm x 250cm resin based black and white photo paper, board, acrylic sheeting

Section of From Light series produced as commission for Photo 98 from location work in North Yorkshire. Large scale photo constructed works. From larger body of work called 'Collected Light'. Slide 'Four days at Gordale Scar'. From Light, Mappin Gallery solo show Photo 98 programme.

Eye Tracking and Interactive Art

Eyecode (Golan Levin, 2007) is an interactive installation whose display is wholly constructed from its own history of being viewed.

By means of a hidden camera, the system records and replays brief video clips of its viewers' eyes. Each clip is articulated by the duration between two of the viewer's blinks. The unnerving result is a typographic tapestry of recursive observation.

John Harper

A quick thank you to Barry Wenden: when Barry Wenden, an external examiner from Northampton for the University of Lincoln, caught a glimpse of my work on this blog, he mentioned the photography of his colleague John Harper. He then went on to show several web pages featuring Harper’s work. John Harper produces photographic joiners, which are very interesting and suggest an array of ideas close to my interests.  

Featured here are a number of photographic joiners that are part of a series called “River”.  John Harper’s work is concerned with landscape: “Geomorphology had always interested me, not from any scientific basis but more in terms of its essential relationship to the activities of the artist. It seemed to me that there were many associations between the practices of the artist and the making of the land, and such thoughts had played their part in previous work. In the mid seventies when I was working more directly with the landscape I produced a series of works which I termed 'Catchment'. I felt that the artist’s activities related to this concept in that we gather material from a catchment area around us to condense and reform it, much in the same way as a river does. This information is then carried along through time by forces that are out of the artists hands. We work with time, no matter what our subject matter is and are always conscious of our own temporality and transience” (Harper, J., n.d.). 

Although nature is not the subject of or referred to directly in the final project, the work does concern itself with landscape and to “temporality and transience”.  This is Harper's description of his relationship to landscape:

“I began to think of the river in allegorical terms and to realise the close temporal and physical relationships that exist between the nature of the river and the nature of film. Both are translucent ribbons that carry memory along in their flow, that have complex and overlapping time structures, and each in their own way transport light and reflection with complex plays on the nature of picture plane and space” (Harper, J., n.d.). 

The above work is part of 'Broken and Breaking Ground' a Book project with John Harper featuring recent work from Fermynwoods. Working closely with John Harper, the book was produced over a 3 month period between 2007 and 2008. It's launch coincided with the associated exhibition of John Harper’s work at Fermynwoods.

John Harper is a member of the creative practice-led research network LAND2 (“land squared”) - formally LAN2D) – which was started in 2002 by Iain Biggs (UWE Bristol) and Judith Tucker (Leeds) as a national network of artist / lecturers and research students with an interest in landscape / place-oriented art practice.



Sources:

Harper, J., (n.d.) "The River" Land 2, Membership, Statement and Work:

http://www.land2.uwe.ac.uk/harper.htm