Tony Iommi
I find the story of this great musician very inspiring, not only for art but personally in my life. He lost two of the top parts of his fingers in an accident which made him reconsider his career as a musician. He managed to make extensions for these fingers and adapt his guitar. This changed the sound it made, which led to him producing very different tunes and composing music from a whole new perspective. Tony Iommi funded Black Sabbath, and invented a whole new genre: heavy metal. I personally like their songs a lot.
It shows that whenever we think of something as a failure or a tragedy, it is not always just that. I mean, it is not a "step backwards" in our lives, but a step that takes us somewhere else, that's it. I think the feeling of regret is the worst one, and many people suffer with it by looking at past events and where have they led them, which is very sad.
Guy Allot, Carrie Grainger, E.J. Campbell
I remember visiting this exhibition a while ago. I took some photos too.
Carrie Grainger investigates "cultural superstition, symbolism and ritual practice.(...) Her work addresses mysticism, the mind, reservation and concealed societies." (Source: gallery's leaflet)
In the Collyer Bristol Gallery, I found Carrie Grainger's work Roots. These tree small sculptures remind me of the movie Coraline, because they seem to be small individuals, like from an animation movie, captured in a suffering position. They have that sense of being fantastic creatures. The idea of concealing, and of secret societies/worlds also remind me of Coraline.
They also remind me of Mona Hatoum's burnt toys pieces because of their matte black colour and the texture of the materials. Similarly to both works referenced above, they are quite sinister although cartoony.
Roots, 2017-19. Metal wire, foil, plaster, hot glue, acrylic, soil and water.
There is also a sense of ritual in Emily Jane Campbell's piece. It mixes the real with the unreal, the imaginary with a more recognizable landscape background... In a way, she lets her subconscious freely create forms in the piece - forms created directly from her memory- that to me, sometimes they do not link very well. Probably because of the lack of shadows that make the elements seem to be just laying on top. I understand that this adds to the surreal effect, however, I do not like it as it crosses the line of the real and immediately seems fake. I see in this painting and in the previous work seen, a reference to childhood. Maybe because of the bright colours in this one, and the fantasy-like value of the sculptures.
Portal, 2019. Emily Jane Campbell. Oil, acrylic, handmade paper.
Linked to this imaginative landscape are the works of Guy Allot. His work is about "documenting what he sees and feels around him" He mixes again his memories, feelings and the physical world that we can touch and see. They make me think of utopian landscapes, because of their great technology charge and of the mixture of technology and nature. His works present places that have kind of a narrative feeling, as they seem to me background landscapes that could appear in films, books, etc. Actually, he references Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as an early example of a science-fiction story that has moral warnings, and compares this to his works, that show us who we are today.
LSXVIII, Guy Allott
Sources:
Gallery's leaflet
https://www.a-n.co.uk/reviews/the-immaculate-dream-14-june-30-october-2019/
John Stark
Stark has many realistic, linear, detailed paintings with a highly symbolic value. I prefer the ones I attached at the end, which have a less marked sense of balance and stability. These two paintings show a gloomy atmosphere where men are doing things to alter the environment, things related to the production and farming processes. They are hooded, in the first image, in my opinion suggesting how this is not a real literal image, but an example of an action that is part of a larger process; a larger cycle. There is some kind of tension between the human intervention and the natural environment. The scenes look toxic to me too, confusing me as the elements we find are simple farming-related subjects. I find very interesting too how his images relate to others he has created in the past. He has created his own realm of images.
"The Babylonians believed the universe originated from water and also noticed it contains opposite elements. And so, there is day and night, light and dark, male and female, hot and cold, wet and dry. There is also good and evil and in principle every feature has an opposite element."
This statement reminds me of Studio Ghibli films, as these differ with other animated films of the West because there is no "good" and "bad" character. They all bring good and bad, and the ones who initially seem as the evil ones always reveal a backstory with a lot of reasoning for their ways of thinking. Unlike Aurora and the witch, Hayao Miyazaki's characters are very similar to each other; they were just born in different sides. I can relate this to the "good" and "bad" sides of science advances. We have gained a great power and sense of security, but at what cost? For instance, agriculture gave people enough food to survive and reproduce, but they doomed their futures and their children's lives to the work at the farms (more extended in the book Sapiens).
Coming back to John Stark, I also find very interesting how although his painting style is very realistic and technical, he plays with tone and composition to manipulate the image into something that, does not seem like a painting. I thought they were edited photographs at first. I like this ambiguity between real and imaginary, and between painting and photography. I like how he plays with symbolism and existing images to express his own story. It is something that Hayao Miyazaki does too, with imagery from Shinto.
"So I often draw on existing ancient symbolism and apply it to current situations, and this does in turn create a kind of map I suppose, of cult/religious thinking throughout history, but more so it enables us to see. I couldn't claim it my own system however, its more a conversation with pre-existing imagery and symbolism which I then borrow, hybridise and apply."
Wage War 2016
Harvest 2016
Pastoral Arcadia
Dale Adcock
Adcock mixes elements from different cultures, references such as the African tribal art, masks, sacred geometry and sculptural figures that as soon resemble ancient Egyptian civilizations, as indigenous tribes of North America. This is similar to artists that I have recently discovered, such as Andrea Zucchini (Twice Born, replicas of Mesoamerican artefacts). These oil paintings are greatly symbolic. The drawing style is very realistic and precise, but the strong lighting reminds me of Giorgio De Chirico's forms.
The compositions show these objects in abstract atmospheres, exemplifying how another artist uses already existing symbols to create a manipulated, unreal atmosphere, that to me, is a bit futuristic as well as mystical. I find very inspiring how these works can have all of these connotations.
DON'T FOLLOW THE WIND Exhibition
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=252&v=qWN7d4pBqTs&feature=emb_logo
"At the time of the Fukushima disaster, many artists felt incompetent in a way. They expressed how powerless art is in the face of disaster. We felt the same way, but we'd only confirm that if we didn't do anything."
In this short documentary, the artists highlight that in times of crisis, when things stop functioning, what artists can offer becomes very valuable. Their goal was to turn the international attention back to the radioactive contamination’s issue that was still ongoing in Fukushima. In the future, if I want to make works that have to do to current global issues, with this mindset I could pick on something from the past, and talk about it now, bringing attention to it again. I usually get caught up on today's news, when I could research something that was big on the news and that affected many people, and open the discussion again. In my mind this makes a lot of sense, and could be seen quite obvious.
"By putting the artworks in a zone that no one can enter, we could possibly show the world that this is an ongoing reality."
In the Exclusion zones of places like Fukushima or Chernobyl, one can only find what's left of the homes and the objects that once formed part of the everyday lives of people. In a way, the artworks are introduced to these personal, intimate spaces, and they will remain there, instead of the people that lived there, replacing the residents. In my opinion this was also partly a performance as they had to put themselves through that. Their bodies were put in a dangerous risk to make this happen.
There is a big element of time in this exhibition. It does not have opening and closing dates, and it is indefinite. The objects have been abandoned by the artists. Now, with no humans around for a long time, nature and other sources will interact with them. We will not live to see the end result, but it is interesting to think about how this exhibition will be taken over by nature.
"Nature and destruction is all that is left"
More works, apart from Trevor Paglen's:
-Chim-Pom - Japanese group that has done many "controversial" works. Some I find disturbing, like the rats that were captured and stuffed like pikachu.
-Ai Wei Wei: putting himself in a situation he did not exist in - replacing photos of a house with photos of him and his family.
-Photographs of surfaces of places in the dangerous zone, places that are close-ups of decayed materials and details of textures that form part of the landscape.
More:
https://frieze.com/article/dont-follow-wind
https://www.cccb.org/es/actividades/ficha/dont-follow-the-wind-a-walk-in-fukushima/227755
William Morris
It is impossible to imitate nature literally; the utmost realism of the most realistic painter falls a long way short of it.
Morris studied plants intimately but never copied them literally. He didn’t think it was possible to imitate nature. This reminds me of religion, for example in Islam God cannot be depicted because there is no real image of God (and some say he's too perfect to be represented). Islamic patters found in the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, remind me of Morris' works too. In fact he was very inspired by the Medieval Ages, probably by Catholic images, but despite this I do find an interesting beauty and resemblance. Moreover, I think that in every religion there is a similar devotion to nature or to natural forms (nature = Eden and also paradise in Islam, as seen in the Alhambra) that links ecologic thoughts to spirituality. If we take away religion, we can still feel certain spiritual powers in nature. Why is this? Morris followed principles of ‘beauty, imagination and order,’ across all his work, inspired by wilderness.
Disgusted with heavy levels of pollution, he refused to use chemical dyes, instead championing the return to organic methods, using natural materials which would give brighter pigments, reminiscent of the limited colour palettes in medieval art.
He was one of the first ecosolialists and his deep commitment to this sustainability vision in my opinion started with his love and admiration for nature, which reminds me of the book The Enchantment of Modern Life by Jane Bennett, as this is exactly what it suggests. The book exemplifies through many chapters how feeling attachments to our environments can make us feel deeper inner peace and a connection to them which then transforms into an ethical behaviour. Morris greatly suggests this idea in the next quote:
The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.
Morris' motivations lied in the restoration of the traditional crafts and the fight against the ugliness and injustice of capitalist society. John Ruskin, another Arts&Crafts figure, understood that what really drove the Victorian desire to be rich was the desire to have power over others. The art of becoming rich, wrote Ruskin, was really the art "of contriving that our neighbours have less". Ruskin conceded that wealth wasn't bad in itself, but neither was it good.
Capitalism is the word he used, as opposed to “industrial society” or “the modern world”, after he read and embraced the writings of Karl Marx and became a Marxist in the 1880s.
Industrialization brought many advances in technology that could be used to help the cause of the loss of art and appreciation of nature. It can bring art to the masses easily as well as share techniques and thoughts about ethical living -In Morris' times and today. This connects to eco architecture and visions of utopian future cities.
I find a strange and funny contradiction in William Morris' accomplishments. His works, carefully handmade and unique, have achieved something spectacular: they have become very relevant today, in the field of decoration, but also in the world of the internet. He did achieve what he wanted, of making his art available to everybody, but at the same time, this man who wanted to restore what he imagined were the communal values of the middle ages made designs that in a way get "mass produced" online. His fonts and detailed patterns still look good in the internet age.
Morris had seen first hand the proliferation of poverty and poor living conditions amongst industrial workers. In 1883, he joined the Democratic Federation, Britain’s first socialist party, and began writing, lecturing, and campaigning on socialism the following year.
While inspired by a sense of injustice in the profound level of inequality in society, Morris’ aestheticism was also always evident in his socialism, arguing that ‘so long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on’.
"I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few"
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/06/john-ruskin-dehumanising-power-capitalism
David Thorpe
The works of David Thorpe remind me of urban utopias and scenes from movies, probably because of the exterior and interior scenes that look very staged and unreal, such as the streetlight scenes that look from Blade Runner. You connect these places to people, fantasizing about who lives in them. I imagine fictional lifestyles of people with very exciting, crazy personalities. And these types of people link with this next quote:
“I’m playing with certain associations, slightly New Age, slightly Space Age, slightly threatening… I’m absolutely in love with people who build up their own systems of belief.”
This last part expresses the artist's admiration towards people who challenge the norms of life, connecting with people who inspired him like the musician Sun Ra, a very crazy persona which to me seems, a bit off- I find he seems so disconnected to this world.
There is a play with shadows, bold colours and patterns that combine in challenging angles to show new landscapes. They link to Japanese woodblock prints, and Victorian paper-cutting. I knew him for his elaborate collaged paintings, but he also has work that explores the actualisation of pattern. These look very decorative but have unusual 3D presentations. With these works and with his sculptural objects, he brings out 3D works from his painting environments. Recent collages incorporate all manner of found matter, from tissue paper through to dried bark, mass-produced jewellery, slate, glass and dried grasses and flowers. I am inspired to try this, to try collage again, but not only with paper.
These patterns remind me of home-craft manuals and William Morris. There is a concern with the craftsmanship of art pieces, as his works are very polished and meticulously worked. We shall note how Morris painted a pattern for John Ruskin’s famous essay ‘Nature of Gothic’, which defines the artist as ‘a Naturalist’ who seeks true beauty by illustrating nature and the human being ‘in its wholeness’. This, combined with the images of modern architecture living within nature that Thorpe creates, makes me think of some kind of community living out in nature -finding a way to not conquer it, but live in harmony. I have been very interested lately with stories of people building their own eco-houses and living from nature. I think that many people see this as an idealized process, as they want to live out in nature whilst having the benefits and luxuries of developed urban lives. I do think that living out in nature is the most beneficial for my wellbeing and for the planet, but only if it happens in the correct, ethical way. We now live in this cycle of mass-production and waste, and we have to change to a full sustainable cycle, like that found in nature, and reject capitalism (is this possible?).
Thorpe’s watercolours appear to offer some truth as ‘pure’ specimens of the natural biology of the world from his vision. But studied closely, these plants themselves are shot through with the geometries of man-made culture. This world is built upon a foundation of human invention and endeavour.
This brings back the idea of architecture that finds harmony in nature -how we have the capacity and technology to achieve the perfect imitation of nature to adapt to it.
There is a kind of romantic appeal which points to the possibility of the existence of a pocket of space for building one’s own system of living, one’s own freedom, within an alienating and dysfunctional outside world.
Like the individuals who defined the creative culture in the period preceding Karl Marx—the Romantic poets—Thorpe’s work draws upon an idealized version of the natural world. Unlike them, his work does not feel like a lamentation. It’s clear that there is some kind of strength in the artist’s reclamation of this particular kind of space, where the fired clay building material of the enveloping brick and its integrity are weathered and pacified by Thorpe’s occupation.
Endeavours, 2010. Wood, ceramic tiles, steel. 309.2 x 262.3 x 120 cm
Covenant of the Elect, 2002. Mixed Media Collage. 63 x 111 cm
Pippa Gatty
There is something to Pippa Gatty’s paintings that is like standing at the edge of space. Terrifying, abyssal, infinite, maybe. Like peering out of six-inch thick glass, a bathysphere drifting through curtains of sea snow falling into the deepest trenches of the ocean, and there framed in the ellipsis of the submarine’s yellow-green headlamps a glimpse of some wonder, or nighttime horror.
What creature is this? The shell of some monstrous crab? The glistening dust of moth’s wing upon a window? Or a way-off planetary system glinting through pinpricks in the backcloth?
This is a beautifully written text about Pippa Gatty’s mesmerizing paintings. They show very little, but somehow this makes us, the viewers, complete a story with our imagination. We see natural forms, images that remind us of insects, fruit, shellfish, ships on a collision course, the sea, the sky, the milky way… Images that are mysteriously shown far away, in scenes full of shadows and distance, but scenes that are encouraging for our imagination. We never know what they are for sure, which I think that is what makes these images so special; how they look almost like things we can name.
My paintings are generally dark and small in scale, and this intimacy invites the viewer into my unsettling world with its ‘Nature’ resonances. These microcosms document my experience of my environment, my sense of wonder and foreboding and grief, and reflect a nostalgia for a time of ecological innocence and yet the reality of the situation.
These scenes on the verge of recognisability are “landscapes” to Gatty, who describes how she often finds forms and faces in her everyday environment, in the patterns of the wallpaper, the formation of branches in the trees and the shapes in the clouds, and how she gives these visions credence in her paintings.
Gatty's exhibition "Against the Fall Of Night" is inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s science fiction novel of the same name. I find this connection very interesting, as I could look more into it for my own project that has the same themes and ideas, such as the development of the planet, the connection between humans and the natural world, devastation and the passing of time.
The setting for Clarke’s story is an Earth a billion years from now where the oceans have dried up and life has all but left save for the last community of humans crowded into a city rising from the desert planet like a sandcastle on a beach. Though the city is technologically advanced, its citizens are a conservative, insular bunch, fearful of the external universe which they perceive as a threat to their longevity.
Its title was taken from a line of a poem called ‘Smooth between sea and land’ by the English poet A.E. Housman and published after his death in 1936. The poem explores themes found elsewhere in Housman’s writing: the loss of innocence, of childhood wonder at the countryside, and of our diminishing connection to the natural world. Here Housman uses the image of the beach to confront the futility of creative endeavour in an uncaring universe. We follow the prelapsarian bliss of a summer afternoon tracing names with a stick in the sand only to have one’s work erased at nighfall by a land-grabbing limb of the sea, eternally stuck in a compassionless cycle of claiming, relinquishing and reclaiming:
Here, on the level sand,
Between the sea and land,
What shall I build or write
Against the fall of night?
The message in this poem does not end with a hopeful assurance of God caring for us, as the poet was an atheist, but it leaves us with the idea of transience. I remember studying W. B. Yeats' ‘Lapis Lazuli,’ a poem about regeneration of human societies and civilizations. Gatty's paintings allude to the idea of ephemerality, but in a shy way, and pointing to the value of creativity in the present world, in our present time. There is a relationship with Romanticism, as there is a certain romantic nostalgia in her paintings, a wonder for the unknown and an idealisation of nature and human solitude. My work is certainly inspired by these concepts and I would like to keep these sources in mind when creating more work.
Remains, 2015.
Muta, 2017
Belle, 2018
Chatland, 2017
https://www.arushagallery.com/press/35-essay-pippa-gatty-against-the-fall-of/
Olafur Eliasson
The exhibition of Olafur Eliasson at the Tate Modern was an exploration of natural phenomena, as it showed works where the main subject was light, water, fog, for example. This immersive exhibition also investigated the way we interact with the world, as these main subjects and phenomena were explored in terms of how we see or perceive them, or in some cases, like with the work "Moss wall," how they feel when touched. Some works like "A description of a Reflection" (1995) were simply experiments, where he, and us as the audience played with the physics of light, reflections and projections.
Upon entering, I was mesmerized with "Modelroom," an exhibit of numerous experiments of form, texture, materials, with architectural sculptures that created an ecosystem that seemed alive, combining art and mathematics. This feeling of the works being alive comes from how they seem just that: experiments, some were unfinished, some were simple, some more complex. It inspired me to dive into creating and exploring objects without stopping to think.
I have never seen something like "Big Bang Fountain" before. This excellent piece could only be seen for less than a second, when the flashlight went on. It left you an image engraved in your memory, until it was replaced by the next image flashed. The water fountain, ongoing and silent, in a pitch black room, turned into frozen statues sculpted by light. Olafur Eliasson is changing the matter and the form of this piece, within our perception, as if it was an illusion -meaning, without changing it in reality. He is making a solid from a liquid, which is then photographed by professionals and turned into prints, but also photographed in our minds. I was inspired to work with 4D and 2D in the future. I realize that I have to really push myself to explore the infinite possibilities of image making.
There is always movement in the works, in my opinion. As the audience, we are part of them too, culminating in "Your blind passenger" (2010), a 39m long corridor of blinding fog. I have never experienced an exhibition that made me feel such strong emotions. Me and my friend, we felt real fear at times. I felt completely lost and helpless. The artist is exploring our perception of the world around us, but playing by shutting off our senses. The element of light accompanies the fog, changing its colour, and being the only way of reassuring that we were advancing in our walk.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo was a noble Italian portrait painter from the Renaissance (Mannerism). His famous "compound heads" are paintings made by putting together a composition different elements that had a direct relationship with the theme of the painting. Fruits, vegetables, animals and other objects are arranged in such a way that together they formed human portraits. For example, the face of the Allegory of Water is made up of fish and sea animals. In The Librarian the rather robotic and unnatural appearance of the subject could have intended to mock the elite and rich who collected many books without actually gaining any knowledge from them.
He created his own world of representing people, where his portraits ranged from allegories about the grandiosity of emperor figures, to satirical caricatures. I find them humorous and fantastical, although a bit eerie sometimes. This feeling of strangeness pops up in the most expressive portraits or the ones that seem more realistic or human, as they seem to become real deformed hybrids instead of simple caricatures. In a way he mixes genres: portraiture, still life, and although unaware of it, surrealism and symbolism.
I have yet to find anything similar to these works in ancient art. I read that these paintings probably received the influence of engravings through drawings by Rosso Fiorentino and Tobias Stimmer, and the grylloi1. In the last century the surrealists got a lot of inspiration from these works.
Four Seasons, 1563-73.
What do foods represent to me? What symbols do I see in specific fruits? Can they be grouped?
1Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Collection of Mediterranean Antiquities, Vol. 3, The Metal Objects and the Gems: The grylloi generally represent a combination of various animals with a human head seen in a profile view, typically specific characters from Greek mythology. The animals chosen and their attributes indicate that these were chosen for their symbolic connotations rather than for their absurd forms.
Predictions for the world in 50 years
Greenpeace GMOs and
Emma Witter
I saw Emma Witter's mesmerizing work at the Sarabande Foundation last year. The exhibition "Remember you must die" showed a collection of sculptures made up of bones and other objects, beautifully shaped in flowery motifs.
I found the objects to be delicate, gentle, but haunting and eerie. As someone who does not eat meat, I could not help but think about the process and feel disgusted at the idea of collecting, cleaning and touching the bones. I would love to experiment with materials like these, as I do find them fascinating to look at, but I may not be able to collect and manipulate bones that came from animals that we eat... I could experiment with materials that came from other living beings, such as plants. I found more about her process in the next article:
Her approach reminds me of Patricia Piscinnini, a great influence of mine, as she sees in the bones the ideas of "sculpture and reinvention" and they express "a modern-day memento-mori that conveys beauty and spirituality rather than something morbid and associated with death." Piscinnini sees her deformed, Frankenstein-like sculptures with love, transmitting through them a feeling of caring for each other despite our differences and genetics.
In her works, I see references to the symbols of Vanitas and the circle of life. However, I find much more interesting what she says about the meat industry, and how the fact that she recycles the bones highlights the waste and gigantic quantities in meat manufacturing.
Another theme I link her works to is still life. There were photography works of her sculptures that linked to still life in painting. Her use of copper and other materials with bones make me reflect about the first Homo Sapiens and how they used bones to build tools and everyday materials, even jewellery.
The first image shows the reflection of my friend on a painted table that was below a workpiece hanging from the ceiling.
Patricia Piccinini
Video interview: https://channel.louisiana.dk/video/patricia-piccinini-new-myths-of-our-time
Patricia Piccinini's sculptures are very realistic hybrids between humans and animals. They seem shocking and disturbing at first, because of their very human expressions that do not add up; they are not what we are used to seeing. However, the ways she sees these creatures is a very beautiful, accepting and loving one.
Her sculptures have a very strong point about animal rights and equality. We are used to considering animals to be below humans, but, doesn't a human baby have the same characteristics as an animal? A baby cannot think in a superior way to animals - it lives on instincts. Obviously, I do think that babies should be given more importance than other species because of obvious reasons as the fact that it will grow into one of us. We are of the same species and babies are our own. Nevertheless, Piccinini's works raise this interesting comparison to me. It makes me infer about a futuristic world of hybrids and new creatures.
Studio Drift "Coded Nature"
The duo Studio Drift's works explore the relationship between humans, nature and technology, mixing design, fine art and architecture. Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta feel inspired by James Turrell and his use of light1. I see how they all work with perception and the different qualities of light (intensity, tone), which reminds me a lot of Olafur Eliasson's last exhibition at the Tate Modern. I remember there was a wall covered in moss, which showed the curious texture and qualities of this natural organism, as well as many works that explored light, reflections, the perception of light through various materials and geometrical repetitive designs.
I think that their works are very unique and perfectly transmit atmospheres reminiscent of the beauty of nature. When I studied Antonio Gaudí's architectures, I also found a similar feeling. When I visited the Sagrada Familia, for example, the beautifully constructed organic shapes of the windows and columns, which intended to imitate nature (trees, forests), together with the perfectly aligned and measured disposition of the cathedral taking into account the sun rays, made a multicolored, sensorial, heavenly experience.
"Coded Nature" is one of the many art tributes of artists to nature, where they have tried to remake certain ecosystems, forms or biological features.
The artists collect dandelions and create installations with them, placing lights inside of the flowers. These two images are from this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Izwc7YZQ4.
Sources:
1"Gordijn and Nauta selected from the museum's collection work by four artists with whom they feel an affinity. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were among them. Also included are works by James Turell (because of the importance of light in his work and his emphasis on perception)"
https://www.studiodrift.com/exhibitions-1
Zaria Forman
https://www.ted.com/talks/zaria_forman_drawings_that_show_the_beauty_and_fragility_of_earth#t-39790
"My drawings explore moments of transition, turbulence and tranquility, allowing viewers to emotionally connect with a place you may never have the chance to visit"
I choose to convey the beauty as opposed to the devastation
art moves people in a way that statistics do not - but I would like to base myself on statistics
art > emotions > actions/engagement with the world
the "grandeour of the ice" and its "vulnerability"
Wolfgang Tillmans Ink photographs
Wolfgang Tilmans makes experimental photographic works. In his practice his themes have a wide range depending on the situation of the present moment. His works engage us with themes of community and sociability, empathy and vulnerability. It closely relates to human life. For me, this artist's career is extremely interesting, as seeing how he experimented with concepts and processes is very inspiring and I will definitely look deeper into his varied range of work.
I find particularly interesting at this point his series of the dispersion of ink in water. As I have said before -like in the Olafur Eliasson entry, I am very interested in exploring matter and natural/physical processes, expanding my working materials and not limiting myself to traditionally art methods such as oil painting or photography of the real world. I am interested in the shapes created naturally within environments such as the waves and the foam of the beach, the reflections of water, the solidification of liquids or the growth and decay of seeds.
There is a great technical achievement with this photographs, as it is very complicated to take such detailed, flawless photographs of ink. By printing them in large canvases for the exhibition, Tillmans explores not only format but the relationship of painting and photography in my opinion. They are abstract images that create painterly shapes that, printed in large canvases could succeed as paintings. On top of this, they do technically originate from paint; from ink! I like to find these links within a work. Overall, these are peaceful, loose, organic shapes reminiscent of water movements, flowers moving with the wind, or the movement of insects' wings.
Sources
https://orderinchoas.wordpress.com/tag/wolfgang-tillmans/
Great summary of his work stages: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/wolfgang-tillmans-2017/room-guide-2017
Katie Paterson
Katie Paterson is an artist who has collaborated with geologists, writers, astronomers, and all kind of scientists. This evidences her wide universal themes that expand to disciplines outside of the arts. There is a sense of time, of deep connection to histories from long ago. In The Cosmic Spectrum she creates colours for each era of the Earth with the help of scientists' investigations, showcasing a spectrum of colours that vary from earthly, warm ones to bright pure light. In many cases, through repetition or massive collections, the final aesthetic of her works adopts a graphic aspect of multiplication. Hollow, for example, is an installation that brings together woods from a compendium of more than 10,000 unique tree species, including wood over 390 million years old, the oldest tree in the world and others almost extinct. The final look is an artificial forest, like a huge, walkable scientific map made of multiple samples.
I like the aspect of investigation of her works. This makes the works have multiple layers of meanings, and value to the process of the work and the history of the matter that makes the work. Hollow creates a play between artificial, man-made and organic, natural environment, as its aspect is like an architectural forest.
Overall, this installation makes us think about the history and variety of vegetation around the world. It is like a "summary" of what nature offers us. It is also a new place for meditation as it is a reflection of human history. I find inspiring how she tells this message through the materials and composition. It is a piece of visual poetry. All of her installations create links between time, nature phenomenons and human history. There is a great interest and study of the world around us, and I find very inspiring how she combines this interest with art, learning about other study fields herself. She transmits this interest and appreciation to the public through her works.
This work makes me want to start a diary of types of trees!
Her works also include detailed drawings of plans and compositions. We can find some in her official page. There is also a web link to http://www.hollow.org.uk/ where we can learn more about the history of each tree. I find that these things make the work much more complete and understandable for general audiences.
I would like to read her latest books for inspiration.
Hollow, 2016, Bristol.
More:
https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/exhibitions/katie-paterson-me-and-my-meteorite-7674894.html
Guy Ben-Ner
Artist discovered as inspiration during quarantine: Guy Ben-Ner.
He features himself and his family in his videos, reminding me of Nan Goldin and her documentary photographs of her friends and surroundings and of Gillian Wearing in the themes about finding oneself and family. There are many references in his videos and performances, as he draws inspiration from philosophers, poets, etc.
Berkeley’s Island (1999) shows Ben-Ner as a lonely castaway stranded on a pile of sand in the middle of his kitchen. He was dealing with artistic constraints. It is a low-budget video that shows a story mixed with a documentary approach to video. It goes back and forth between reality and fantasy, addressing the tension between family obligations and artistic and personal freedom. His kid is walking around, which makes me think of an imaginary game between the two. Only children can act so sure about these type of imaginary surreal scenarios. It is a work that could definitely entertain children, but al the same time work with deeper concerns. Specifically the role of the artist connecting the personal, domestic freedom with the outer issues and the rest of the dramas of the world. This could be applied to today's pandemic: what is the role of the artist in this new unexpected scenario? Where do we fit?
I think that this piece is poetic as well as funny; it is a "wry, absurdist and homespun mode of storytelling whereby epic narratives are collapsed into domestic follies." Berkeley’s Island refers in its title to the empiricist philosopher George Berkeley (1685 -1753) and his motto esse est percipi - ‘to be is to be perceived.’
"My island does not exist. It is a fantasy, inaccessible to foreign eyes.”
He says that the things he acts and creates become realized in life. We can discuss the truth through fiction, and reality will always surpass imagination.
“Truth comes in the guise of fiction.”
Ged Quinn
Utopian Towns for the Future
Trevor Paglen, "Trinity Cube"
The work is made with Trinitite, the mineral created on July 16, 1945 when the United States exploded the world’s first atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico, heating the desert’s surface to the point where it turned surface sand into a greenish glass.
The cube's core is made from this mineral, and then there is glass surrounding it. This is glass that was collected from windows and objects from the zone in Fukushima.
I think is an interesting work because the materials are used for something that has no utility, something that is basically a physical metaphor. I mean, no one would have really imagined that these remains, these debris, would have been used to create something like this. Paglen is using the history of these materials to become the center of the piece -the material's origins are what link the ideas about nature, nuclear power, weapons and geology. This makes me think about the full life of these materials in relation to the processes they have suffered in relation to humans. I wonder about the initial process of creation of the glass windows, their transportation, their life within a Japanese home and the final abandonment of the zone by humans, leaving the glass alone with other sources of interaction, mainly from nature. Trevor Paglen has given this material a new life, and has returned to the world of the humans, only to go back to the Exclusion Zone. Trinitite's origins are far less ordinary, and come from a reaction between the human and the natural world. I find I go back to thinking about the object's timeframe. I am inspired by this profound element of time. I would like to play with different materials and think about processes that can extend their lifespan, looking at the interaction between nature and human.
"For me it's a gesture that's thinking about geogoly, thinking about man-made minerals, and thinking about the history of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Once the sculpture is installed, it will itself continue to be irradiated for as long as there's radiation in the area, and so, overtime it will change in that way. It will become more and more poisonous."
Trinity Cube was created by melting these two forms of glass together into a cube, then installing the cube back into the Fukushima Exclusion Zone as part of the Don’t Follow the Wind project. The artwork will be viewable by the public when the Exclusion Zone opens again, anytime between 3 and 30,000 years from the present. This object is left to live an indefinite time.
Salvatore Arancio talks about urban life and nature
More people live in urban cities now than ever before, and I imagine we’re spending less and less time in nature. In recent years we’ve seen a boom in the self-care industry; people look for this kind of mindfulness or spirituality you speak of in retail, whether it’s a yoga class or a cold-pressed juice or whatever. Psychological relief has become commoditized. But what’s interesting is that so many of these products and commodified experiences use images of nature in their branding and advertising. Are you interested in nature as an image that connotes tranquility and spirituality? Or are you interested in representing the natural world itself?
I suppose a bit of both. First of all, I think something that branded self-care cannot do what nature can is the option to somehow escape from rules of the city. Nature has that edge to it. But I'm also interested in the representation of nature; it's very important to me and it's a starting part. I think it helps us understand what’s around us. But at the same time, you have an idea of what’s around us but then perhaps something else gets discovered and that idea keeps changing over time. Nature is a place to escape, either physically or mentally.
He doesn't talk about climate change or political issues as he prefers to distance his work from that into an "escapism." This is his personal opinion, but I find it very difficult not to talk about what is going on today. I find that escapism is a form of entertainment, but I hope that artists can do more things than that. It is not possible to do work that always feels like escapism.
So then what do you hope your viewers get out of your work? Does your work in the gallery become a surrogate for nature, and thus provides a form of escape, in your view?
There's always different ways my work can be read. It starts from that vision of nature but then there are other layers of things that I'm interested in. So it's a juxtaposition of different elements. It could be seen as an experience but also if you dig deeper into it then you realize it also references other things. I quite like the idea that viewers first get attracted to the work; it’s seductive. I always try to make my work with that in mind. I want to the viewer to feel like they want to touch the work or have some kind of relationship to it visually. Then if they want to see other elements of it they can do that also.
There is clearly a big interest in the aesthetic qualities of the work. It may be difficult to accept in our world today, but fine art is still greatly just visual. However this broad visual language is what artists work with to create connections and play with interactions between the elements.
So it's not a representation of nature itself—it's more a translation of it. It starts from an image but then it becomes something completely layered with other elements and it becomes something else. I use ceramics because I try to make a connection between form and content and for me, the use of clay was obviously the natural vehicle to represent nature because it comes from the same landscape that I then end up replicating. It couldn't be another material, really. But I like to think that the work comes from nature, but then it becomes manipulated by me, so then it becomes my own version of it.
This part relates to William Morris and his idea of the inability to replicate nature - but our capacity to learn from it and imitate it.
More on: https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/qa/salvatore-arancio-55008
Salvatore Arancio
Salvatore Arancio's wide practice explores juxtaposed images that are beautifully evocative and sometimes deeply disquieting, which reminds me of David Altmejd, as his works can make us feel both ways too. He departs from literal images of nature and science for his constructed landscapes, which end up containing a sense of both the familiar and the unknown that enhances their symbolic readings and implications.
Just like Altmejd, his compositions unite contrasting elements and materials such as ceramics, etching, collage, animation and video. This results in an intertwining juxtaposition of concepts such as the natural and artificial, mineral and vegetable, two-dimensional and three-dimensional, scientific and mythological.
"I want them to have an ambiguous temporality almost equidistant between an end and a beginning – images that might be pre-human, or have an apocalyptic quality." His work finds ways of making us wonder about our ancestors’ (and our own) explanations about how the world came to be, and how to best represent it.
I want them to have an ambiguous temporality almost equidistant between an end and a beginning – images that might be pre-human, or have an apocalyptic quality.
"One of my main interests is to challenge conventional ideas of beauty and sublime in nature and their relation with science. I’m interested in botany and geology and fascinated by the merging of myth and science in 19th century illustration, consequently I try to associate these notions with ideas of displacement and ambiguity."
With digital and manual manipulation he transforms images into surreal and impossible landscapes. He is inspired by scientific illustrations to create his own interpretation of nature. He intends to create misunderstandings with the titles, as he says, as there are references to the initial sources but really they are just made up. There is a sense of tension between humans and nature, sometimes between us the viewers in the gallery space and the works. It is as if we did not know the world around us, and will never be able to find out.
"My sets of interests and concerns have also translated into the video trilogy entitled SKEEL, which comprises of three short animations. Loosely inspired by the violent volcanic eruption that took place in Mount Mazama (Oregon, USA) about 6,000 years ago, the animations were made by using found scientific 19th century black and white etchings of volcanic landscapes. The illustrations have been taken out of their original geological context to be digitally reprocessed in such a way to induce subjective reflections about destructive natural phenomena and past attempts of scientific description."
This reminds me of my own interests with disasters such as Chernobyl and war zones. In my case, these are human-made disasters that affect us for a very long time. It is also a theme that connects to Fukushima and artist Trevor Paglen.
Our relationship to nature is very much about finding something that's above us, some kind of spirituality that nature becomes the vehicle to reach. It’s a place to escape and to feel more free. I'm also interested in things like psychedelia and drug-taking, which takes place within nature, as nature has been a theater for rituals. And I would definitely not use the word "religious" as it brings so many connotations that I distance myself from. The work is more about a connection with something spiritual and primordial. It refers to nature as a theater of rituals and a manifestation of something we cannot fully control or understand.
Maybe here lies part of the answer to this "spirituality" we feel in nature (mentioned in William Morris' entry): it is something that we cannot fully control or understand. We can affest our surroundings, but we will never be fully in control as what we do in the present can bring great consequences in the future -similar ideas are discussed in Sapiens.
And These Crystals Are Just Like Globes of Light, 2016. Glazed ceramic.
Variable dimensions Installation view at Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland
Bear's Head, 2012. Glicée print on canvas.
Bristly Panus, 2013. Inkjet print mounted on cotton paper mounted on dibond, wood, perspex.
Sources:
https://wsimag.com/art/2232-salvatore-arancio
http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/artist-members/salvatore-arancio/
David Altmejd More
These works remind me of Paula Y Arena and her paper sculptures, but taken to another level, as they are much bigger and fill up the space. He is not afraid of the contrasts, as he mixes clean, polished shapes with roughly sculpted forms. There are casts of hands everywhere, that make me think that the hands are working on the piece, tearing it apart or finishing it.
“I like the idea that the hand has a mind.”
A nightmare, you might say, though Altmejd said he takes no direction from dreams, and is interested in surrealism and science fiction or fantasy only in that “they do offer a freedom to build and combine things.” More surprisingly, perhaps, he said that he sees the hands that gouge the surfaces of his angelic The Watchers and Bodybuilder statues as forces of self-transformation – the mind of the individual working on the self, not some outside power relentlessly tearing at the body.
Hands drag their self-same material from the legs up to become the torsos and heads constructed of hands. The process parallels a Gothic cathedral, an ascension which builds upward toward the light. The material assembled near the bodies’ shoulders is transformed into wing-like extensions, conjuring images of angels and then, as part of the classical history of sculpture, become Altmejd’s own winged work, his reading of the Winged Victory of Samathrace, in a series called “the Watchers.”
The Measure of Things, 2017mixed media. 64,8 × 24,1 × 32,4 cm
(Left) Fan of Soul, 2017. Aqua-resin, epoxy resin, fiberglass, steel, aluminum, graphite, MSA varnish. 181,3 × 148,3 × 25,4 cm
(Right) La licorne, 2016. Bronze, 223 × 97,5 × 80 cm
David Altmejd
David Altmejd's sculptures are formed using a wide variety of materials, such as crystals, mirrors, synthetic hair and fur, resin, wood, metal. I am inspired by this thorough experimentation, and I wish to look at challenging materials and eccentric combinations. These materials and objects also give his works seem as important as the process, as they provoke thoughts about the how.
Altmejd makes hybrids that in my opinion are overwhelming with information and detail. There is so much going on that it seems that something is growing from them -somehow these baroque sculptures seem to have some kind of illness growing. They show decay and regeneration in a metaphorical dialectic between the human world and the animal realm. They are funny but macabre and scary. The mix between sparkling, rigid objects such as crystals or metal with more organic ones remind me of descriptions of horrible scenarios of the book Crash, by J.G. Ballard, where seductive images merge with violent and morbid ones.
The generative decay that is transformative works to mute and confuse the line between exterior and interior.
Altmejd’s delicate touch is evident in the carefully balanced tone he maintains between the grotesque and the beautiful, between seduction and repulsion. The Lovers, 2004, is one example. Flesh and fur and skeletal bones conjoin. With infinite care thin gold chains link the finger bones to crystals and flesh. Only the British writer John Berger can make life after death so desirable. In And our faces, my heart, brief as photos (Pantheon Books, 1984), he writes, “What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered together….A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower). The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel.” The piece goes on, a paeon to eternity, to infinity. Altmejd’s pursuit as well.
I really enjoy his works because I like to see strange things that challenge my reactions; objects that make me feel confused mixed initial impressions. They are ambiguous and vague, as they are animal, human, architectural, mystic figures that can be captivating, disturbing or extremely poetic.
I find very interesting how they are presented in a gallery, exploring all possibilities, using various devices like platforms, display cases, oversized cabinets, etc., to fully interact with the space and make the works even more challenging and unexpected to the viewers. I am extremely surprised with the exhibition view below. The artist merges the works within a space that he creates with glass and other materials. It is almost as if there was a gallery inside the gallery. This is an ecosystem which is like coming into the artist's labyrinthine mind. It has an spiritual ambience, probably achieved by the light effects. In this alien universe there are creatures living and sort of interacting, like in the third image. These creatures seem dark statues in this light and glass world - they seem to be in the after-death, they are like symbols of what we could become.
You could look at The Flux and the Puddle for a long time and still feel like you hadn’t seen the whole piece, which is part of the point. “I like the idea of an object that contains more volume than appears from its outside, an object that contains infinity,” says Altmejd. He’s also really into the illusion of weightlessness, as a way of liberating his material from its debt to gravity
There are cycles everywhere, where pieces are falling and moving, interacting with other works in a surreal way. The glass vitrines remind me of the Natural History Museum. The last image shows a zebra that seems to float, trapped in this magical realm, where the artist seems to be "painting in the space" to me, using objects, light and lines to make a composition.
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The Flux and the Puddle, 2014. Mixed media. 327.6 × 640 × 713.7 cm
Le spectre et la main. (Guy L'Heureux)
“A lot of people think that I’m really fascinated by death and morbidity, but I’m much more interested in life. I just think that things look more alive when they’re growing on top of what’s dead.I think about decay not in a negative way, but in the sense of creating a space for things to start growing.”
Press releases and news: http://images.andrearosengallery.com/www_andrearosengallery_com/Altmejd_Press_Kit_Updated.pdf
"MUSHROOMS" Part 2
This work by Amanda Cobbett reminds me of "To Fix the Image in Memory" by Vilja Celmins. Amanda Cobbett makes machine embroidered sculptures. This makes me appreciate the crossover of art disciplines of contemporary art, as she is both a textile artist and a sculptor. They are very beautiful pieces that embrace the artistic process, the hard work of paying close attention to detail and carefully building up layers to then form these creations. I also think that they are very sweet pieces not only because they highlight the gentle care of the artist, but they make us find beauty in nature in a meditative way. These works are asking us to not only look at nature for inspiration, but to closely examine nature and appreciate every form that comprises it.
Amanda Cobbett, Fungi Collection.
This work also has to do with copies. They are replicas of historical sacred objects. Civilizations such as the Mayas used hallucinogen drugs, and worshipped certain kinds of mushrooms. They are mythical and curious. Theses cultures' beliefs were intrinsically linked to their natural surroundings, reminding me of shamanism.
The artist is creating objects that are in a totally decontextualized, as they do not originally belong to this location or time. Instead of just displaying the original objects themselves, the artist chooses to make replicas. Maybe this was just a decision based on convenience, but maybe they did choose to create it themselves, to explore the details of the sculpture and develop a relationship with the material and the theme. I ask myself, is the artist trying to renew out relationship to nature?
Twice Born, 2016. Hand carved cobalt cobalt replicas of Mesoamerican artefacts. Andrea Zucchini.
This artist explores grid-like patterns found in nature to create her own fungal network system. I find interesting the parallels between systems naturally found in nature and in human society. I am very reminded of insects. The artist displays these on the walls as if they were samples of a bigger system. Again, she is carefully looking at nature to produce her own "replicas," her fantasy environments.
Broadcast, Interface and Network. 2019. Glazed ceramic. Lauren Owen.
This exhibition was not only about mushrooms. The mushroom is a symbol of nature. It is a resource used in many modern things, and we are still discovering what it offers.
More links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4JQqGvY5l4
https://www.amandacobbett.com/
http://moorishharem.com/mushroom-symbolism-pre-columbian-art/
Dimensions of Dialogue (1982)
Video pieces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-0a4Yxs4YY
Interview: https://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.3/issue2.3pages/2.3jacksonsvankmajer.html
In the first video by Jan Svankmajer, he "brings to life" a famous painting by Arcimboldo. The link above shows three videos of this artist, who was very involved with the Surrealist movement. I find that these videos transmit some sensations of awe and freaky similar to those of Luis Buñuel's films.
I find these video pieces very inspiring, because of many reasons. They link painting, sculpture and video in grotesque but somehow funny stop-motions. I could experiment with this technique sometime in the future. The first one specifically interests me because Svankmajer plays with the meanings of the objects, grouping them by organic foods and kitchen utensils, characterizing these opposite bands as soft and colourful, and metallic and sharp. The faces seem to talk to each other (have a "dialogue") when suddenly the scene becomes violent, and close ups of pointy instruments and cuts, chops and bangs take over with dramatic instrumental music. I find very interesting how we can feel shocked by a fight between objects.
Then the process of beating objects is repeated until the crushed mix of, basically trash at this point, becomes human flesh. I interpret this as the human being the final product of some messy process of living on a dependency on these objects. The human vomits another human and replicates itself, so it is also like a mass-produced object, which is very eerie.
As always, the soundtrack is very important in the impressions of the video. With the soundtrack, camera angles and actions he tells a story about "dialogues" without saying one word.
The second video shows a dialogue between a couple. They merge in a dance-like rythm creating new textures, like clay or plasticine-like shapes. They separate in two individuals that coexist until a new indescribable organic form appears in the scene and causes a fight between them, who get annoyed at each other just because of the small abstract shape, and their actions culminate in their destruction. I find the tempo in this film perfect for increasing the tension and changing the tone of the subjects. In my opinion this is a very meaningful work that explains how absurd human communication is sometimes, how we can fail to understand each other and cause pain.
Svankmajer's works are imaginative and surprising: you never expect what will happen next. They repulse but mesmerize us, and tell stories that could make no sense at all, or have meanings that can resonate with us.
Text
"Frankenstein" Mary Shelley
Paula y Arena
I visited this unique exhibition by Paula Y Arena that opened my eyes and introduced me to new ways of treating the materials. Upon entering, the room displayed paper sculptures that were sustained in the air. The artist makes these types of structures solely with paper and similar materials to this. They remind me of Fallas monuments, where giant paper and card figures are built to then be burnt in the end of the famous holiday. They looked magical, imaginative and from a fantasy world, as she combines regular objects with figurative elements.
The volumes and compositions of most of the works seen here inspired me a melancholic feeling and a sense of delicacy and ephemerality, as they are inclined and floating in the air. The most captivating thing for me was the organic texture of the works. The surfaces seem to grow and be alive; reminding me of trees and plants. The white of her works reminded me of bones.
PIE DE RIO. 2014 and 13. 2017. 76×40 cm.
Sources:
"MUSHROOMS: THE ART, DESIGN AND FUTURE OF FUNGI"
At the Somerset House I saw a group exhibition about mushrooms and its associations. I was generally very interested in seeing how artists have developed works from different disciplines, from a same theme -this is what I like about group exhibitions. The sub-themes of mushrooms were: fungi in an ecosystem, the vibrant unique appearance of mushrooms, the psychedelic feature, the magic and mystery of mushrooms, survival, mushrooms as a material for design, etc.
Graham Little, Untitles (wood). 2019, Gouache on paper.
This painting reminds me of a children's book illustration because of the presence of children, the pastoral atmosphere and the very detailed drawing. However I see an influence of fashion magazines, as the children look more like models or even mannequins than real people, which could result in something artificial and odd (They look like Zara models!). The scene looks very staged, instead of looking like a natural scene of mushroom foraging from everyday life. On the painting description it said that this idyllic painting was created "in response to the increasing presence of the digital in our experience of nature and pleasure."
Typical pastoral paintings expressed the idea of nature as this relaxing place, and life in the countryside in an ideal manner, adored by people living in urban spaces. Something like working in the countryside or going to look for mushrooms is showed in a fake light, as the hardships of this lifestyle are avoided. (This reminds me of the chapter on the Agricultural Revolution in Sapiens.) In this painting, nature seems to be far away from us, something fantastical and staged, and as said before, very artificial. To me, it is an idealization of nature in the 21st century.
Lara Ögel, In the Nursery. 2017, Watercolour and collage on paper.
"Drawn to the appearance of mushrooms in ruins and other odd places, for Ögel fungi open up a wider discussion on existence, life and survival. Mushrooms hold the promise of psychological and universal liberation."
I find very interesting how this artist associates mushrooms with many things that could seem quite out of place, but visually look explorative and attractive. It inspires me to try more collage and painting in the future, like I did in Part 1 and 2. The artist here explores the magical and miraculous powers of mushrooms, something that could be applied to nature in general. Nature is seen as this otherworldly, enchanted thing. But is this because of the many associations of nature with magic created by religion throughout history? Where does this spiritual "liberation" that we see happening in nature come from? What is nature and what is its role anyways?
Jeremy Shaw, Unseen Potentials. 2019, 3x Kirlian Polaroid.
This artist again looks at mushrooms as a metaphor of something subjective, representing inner experiences and altered states. The images are abstractions of mushrooms, and their shapes remind me of embryos. I find this unusual technique of image-making fascinating as these are totally new forms and colours, that come from a real, palpable source of inspiration/investigation. The method of aura photographs is a technique used in parapsychology which brings the surreal and "magical" aspect to mushrooms.
https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/mushrooms-art-design-and-future-fungi