Preparation: Following the light
I have continued with an interest in the phenomenon of light through the craft of painting, and the foregrounding of first-person research.
In recent years I have had a small project on the go, following in the footsteps of J W M Turner and his ‘painting with light’. I actually can’t remember how I came to him, but I actually LOVE his work. And his relevance, you ask? I can try explain my understanding of this…
(image credit: Turner, J W M (c1840-5) A River Seen From A Hill [oil] London: Tate CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported)
In recent years I have had a small project on the go, following in the footsteps of J W M Turner and his ‘painting with light’. I actually can’t remember how I came to him, but I actually LOVE his work. And his relevance, you ask? I can try explain my understanding of this…
(image credit: Turner, J W M (c1840-5) A River Seen From A Hill [oil] London: Tate CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported)
, This love for something, I readily admit is irrational. Love itself still remains fairly unexplainable, therefore residing largely outside the realm of scientific discourse. This is not to say that progress has not been made, as more partnerships between the humanities and science spring up.
Since the decline of main belief systems around the world and the rise of the ideas of Enlightenment, it has been tricky to explore ideas around any irrational or unmeasurable phenomena. Waves of artists, writers and thinkers have queried the effect this has had over the centuries. Nietzsche and Dostoevsky among other writers and philosophers predicted the catastrophe of ignoring the irrational in the late 19th century, and writers such as Orwell also reflected on events in the 20th century . Turner, as one of the artists and writers of the Romantic era, was an early part of this resistance to the supremacy of rationalism. This is not to say that they weren’t incredibly methodical in their thought, practice and research. They merely promoted, by their actions, the notion that subjective perception or first-person observation had a role to play in the study and account of the world.
Turner carried out 19000 sketches, over decades of charted travel into remote extreme environments. Like many artists, he caused the innovation of painting surfaces, mediums and the paint itself. His work, that deals with human industry (driven by science and rationalism), is counterbalanced by the depiction and re-enactment of the strength of nature. Turner recognised that, while nature has its extremities, in icebergs and stormy seas etc, our species also has extremities, with attributes such as callousness, stupidity and passion. His work did not simply depict this point of view. It acted it out. The swirling free movement of his brushwork is a synergical acknowledgment that we humans contain as much raw energy, in the form of emotion, as nature itself. (Image credit: Snow storm - Steamboat off a Harbour's Mouth, Turner J W M 1842, Tate CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 unported)
Since the decline of main belief systems around the world and the rise of the ideas of Enlightenment, it has been tricky to explore ideas around any irrational or unmeasurable phenomena. Waves of artists, writers and thinkers have queried the effect this has had over the centuries. Nietzsche and Dostoevsky among other writers and philosophers predicted the catastrophe of ignoring the irrational in the late 19th century, and writers such as Orwell also reflected on events in the 20th century . Turner, as one of the artists and writers of the Romantic era, was an early part of this resistance to the supremacy of rationalism. This is not to say that they weren’t incredibly methodical in their thought, practice and research. They merely promoted, by their actions, the notion that subjective perception or first-person observation had a role to play in the study and account of the world.
Turner carried out 19000 sketches, over decades of charted travel into remote extreme environments. Like many artists, he caused the innovation of painting surfaces, mediums and the paint itself. His work, that deals with human industry (driven by science and rationalism), is counterbalanced by the depiction and re-enactment of the strength of nature. Turner recognised that, while nature has its extremities, in icebergs and stormy seas etc, our species also has extremities, with attributes such as callousness, stupidity and passion. His work did not simply depict this point of view. It acted it out. The swirling free movement of his brushwork is a synergical acknowledgment that we humans contain as much raw energy, in the form of emotion, as nature itself. (Image credit: Snow storm - Steamboat off a Harbour's Mouth, Turner J W M 1842, Tate CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 unported)
Artworks and their entanglement with phenomena and philosophies are of growing interest, as related by the new materialism, which endeavours 'to account for, in the Baradian idiom, the co-constitutive “intra-actions” between meaning and matter, which leave neither materiality nor ideality intact ' (‘New Materialism’, Susan Yi Sencindiver, 2019 DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780190221911-0016.) Actions such as weaving, dyeing, shattering, disintegrating, aggregating and layering are highlighted as more than analogous of subjects. This extends into the movements of the artist’s body, into the boundaries between art and nature, and into acts of nature itself.
New materialism has roots in the field of linguistics, connecting with social construction and how things and people are represented. Although my work is purposefully weighted more to how things and people act, how they travel or move through, nonetheless, it relates to this field of enquiry by way of the inseparability of the what I am observing, my actions and myself, and all the meaning that is bound up in this.
So, I continue with my journey in recording the phenomenon of light. I will pick a path that seeks out extremes of site, as Turner did. This is not due to copying, more to do with an overlap of interests. I have lived for 25 years in an extreme environment where people die annually from misadventure. I will devise processes that will allow me to move my painting, my means of recording and reenacting the light, through different sites. This is probably common to many artists, but I am aware that Turner innovated portable methodologies more than most. I am curious about this area of innovation, having worked with touring theatre, repertory theatre and community art and devised portable methods myself.
I will be reflecting on my acts of painting and the material aspects of each stage of the process. At the same time, I will be mindful of the idea of ‘finish’, of the light and its reenactment coming to rest in the gallery space. What do I want the work to be doing at this stage? Questions of story-telling, aesthetics and immersion of the viewer will be considered.
New materialism has roots in the field of linguistics, connecting with social construction and how things and people are represented. Although my work is purposefully weighted more to how things and people act, how they travel or move through, nonetheless, it relates to this field of enquiry by way of the inseparability of the what I am observing, my actions and myself, and all the meaning that is bound up in this.
So, I continue with my journey in recording the phenomenon of light. I will pick a path that seeks out extremes of site, as Turner did. This is not due to copying, more to do with an overlap of interests. I have lived for 25 years in an extreme environment where people die annually from misadventure. I will devise processes that will allow me to move my painting, my means of recording and reenacting the light, through different sites. This is probably common to many artists, but I am aware that Turner innovated portable methodologies more than most. I am curious about this area of innovation, having worked with touring theatre, repertory theatre and community art and devised portable methods myself.
I will be reflecting on my acts of painting and the material aspects of each stage of the process. At the same time, I will be mindful of the idea of ‘finish’, of the light and its reenactment coming to rest in the gallery space. What do I want the work to be doing at this stage? Questions of story-telling, aesthetics and immersion of the viewer will be considered.