Isolating Nature

Posted by Samjking on

Gnarly TreeI saw this gnarly tree when walking into the woods.  I've printed it out onto copier paper as a tiled photograph.  I painted out everything in the background so that I isolated just the tree in order that it could be seen in all its gnarly glory. Painting over photos is something Tacita Dean does, she paints around images of famous ancient trees, blanking out the background detail to draw attention to these magnificent trees. I'm looking at something more everyday, just trees and plants that draw my attention that I'd like others to see.

IMG_0057 In the first photo I experimented with varying the paint thickness and brush strokes. In this photo I added more paint to bring this piece together so that it looks more like a specimen from nature. Rather than bring actual specimens from nature (not that I'd really be bringing in a tree) by photographing them I can capture their beauty and leave everything where it belongs.

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These images are photographs taken from the first stage of painting Gnarly Tree.  At this experimental stage I'm looking for possible ways to take my work.  The brushstrokes contrast with the photographic element of the image, this is interesting but I don't think it helps with isolating the individual parts of the landscape.  It creates an abstract image which over complicates the simplicity of  nature,  I want nature to shine by itself.

 

The next image shows a photo I took of a berry on a bush in Autumn.  The image as it stands is vibrant,  it seemed criminal to paint over it. But I did!

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I tried out different brush strokes, using a palette knife, thickness and textures of paint. The final painting has thicker paint one side than the other. This image of a berry seems so robust in comparison to Gnarly Tree. I think the difference comes from the way I photographed the subject. I didn't really think about it at the time but the berry photo was taken as a photo, the composition was about the whole image, whereas rather than being about the whole image, the Gnarly Tree photo was taken to expose the beauty of the tree and nothing else.

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The last image here, is Gnarly Tree analytically reduced to just one gnarly branch, which seems to contain the essence of the whole tree. I left the top edge unpainted, open, I didn't want to cut off the branch, somehow leaving this open space allows the branch some kind of infinity that couldn't be afforded to it if it were sealed in with paint.

The branch by itself has a fragile feel, when the two paintings are viewed together I think there is something delicate and fragile about them both. Perhaps the slightly curled copier paper adds to this, makes them seem less permanent or imposing than something more solid might?