Orozco Exhibition

Orozco Gabriel Samurai Tree (invariant 3R) 2007 Tempera and gold leaf on wood

I went to visit the Tate Modern and the Orozco exhibition, I wasn't sure what to expect from this exhibition, as I had not seen anything by this artist before, so it was quite nice to approach this with no preconcieved ideas or opinions. It was interesting to see a large amount of media that he has used to convey his ideas.

I took my sketchbook round with me and done some quick sketches alongside writing down my first impressions about some of the pieces. I will type up my notes on here so that I can keep the impression fresh without doing any research. These are a few write ups on the pieces that had the most impact on me.

MY HANDS ARE MY HEART 1991

The first piece is a piece of red brick clay squeezed into a shape of a heart, the shape clearly shows the imprints of his hands. It has the appearance of just being squeezed aimlessly without any forethought of the outcome and I did wonder if this was just the result of a happy coincidence. There is a photo of him holding the clay piece over his heart, and the clay piece itself which is enclosed in a glass case. I suppose as an artist this is a statement about his hands which create his works are very much connected to his heart and his love of creating his art. Thats the impression I immediately took from it anyway.

OBIT SERIES 2008

This part of the exhibition was quite intriguing and for a while I was trying to figure out whether each banner was written about the same person. This became obvious when the statements began to contradict themselves. Basically he has taken some lines from the New York Times obituaries, and leaving out the names of the deceased person he has created a line on the banner that sums up each deceased person as they have appeared in the Obituary. I found this quite funny and sad at the same time and it bought to mind how insignificant life can be ,however well known you are your life can still be summed up in five or six little words......

LINTELS 2001

I wasn't sure what to make of this one really. First impressions was one of repulsion actually. Basically he has collected all the fluff and hair from tumble dryers in New York and refelted them all together to form a lint . He has then hung them all on line s which are strung across the gallery, to look like washing lines.

On a deeper level, once I had got over the psychological itching that this piece had managed to provoke. The fluff and hair is all taken from unknown people who may or may not be alive now. It could be considered to be a reminder of the impermenance of everything, but nothing ever completely disappears, there is always something that remains to be changed into something else.

LA DS 1993

This quirky little cart at first glance, just looks a little odd. For some reason it reminded me of a character car from a cartoon or something similar. Closer inspection revealed that it was in fact an old Citroen DS that has had the middle taken out of it and welded back together again. The car no longer has an engine, which generates the paradox of a completely static object, that is aerodynamically built for speed .

SAMURAI TREE INVARIANT PAINTINGS 2006-7

These paintings are really interesting and eyecatching. There are no visible brushstrokes and the colours consist of red, blue ,white and gold. They do give the impression of diagrams and there is an underlying pattern that relates to all three of the paintings where the backgrounds and colours of circles have all been reversed. This is not a a painting as such it is a diagram that seem to represent the branching out of possibilities and responses that are involved in playing any game.

Overall this was an interesting exhibition, I was impressed with the diversity of materials that he had used from painting and photography to the use of found objects and rubbish that have been remoulded and refashioned . This calls into question of how much something which is essentially a piece of rubbish could be considered an item of worth.

Sometimes conceptual art does leave me cold, if it doesn't immediately have a strong visual impact and I have to question too hard to understand it, there is a piece of me that kind of think that it has failed as a visual artwork. I am not going to say that the whole exhibition worked for me there were elements of it that I didn't find particularly engaging, but I would say the majority of it was both interesting to look at visually and it did make me question the underlying concept....

I was interested in investigating the colour interactions between the comlementary contrasts, orange and blue. When two complementary colours are juxtaposed, the two colours are enhanced which makes each colour seem more vibrant.

In places I have attempted to juxtapose two complementary colours of equal brightness. This is to give the impression of the squares floating or jittering around the surrounding colours.

I felt that as the colour combination was very intense and in order for the eyes to be given the chance to rest I have painted some rectangles in white.

However if the strong colours have been stared at for a long time, this gives the optical effect of seeing the image on the space. Itten explored this theory in his colour studies and it is known as " Successive Contrast". It is basically the cones on the retina that pick outs that particular colour tiring out, and the remaining cones in the eye therefore provide the after image, the complementary colour.

This has been an interesting exercise and has enabled me not only to explore the effects that complementary colours have on each other, but also the importance of finding a purity in colour.

The size and placement of the rectangle has just as much an impact as the colour. In some places I found that a smaller dark blue square gives the effect of pushing forward instead of receding which would normally be expected. But in saying that some of the blues are cool blues and some of the blues are warm blues, also the same applies to the orange colours, depending on what they have been mixed with. The Cadmium Red and Yellow are warm whereas the Lemon Yellow has a tendency towards Blue therefore it has a cooler tendency. Ultramarine Blue has a reddish undertone and could therefore be considered a warm Blue. This would account for the effect of pushing forward, particularly if sourrounded by cooler Blues.

This exercise has made me revisit and further question the effect that colours have on each other and optical effects that colour can produce in a painting.

Moving away from my love of colour I wanted to try and portray an abstract seascape using grey s . I can remember mixing these greys in my previous courses. The complementary colours neutralize each other and form neutral greys and browns, when white is added the greys that are created are brighter and more vibrant , and depending on what colour contrasts are used the creation of warm and cool greys can be achieved. This can be used to create a feeling of depth in the painting . With warm colours pushing forward and the cooler colours receding.

There is something I like about these small sketch book studies they have a certain tranquility to them and are loose enough to be considered as abstract.

grid paintings preliminary colour sketches from sketchbook

These are three grid sketches from my sketchbook where I have just used pens or paints to experiment with the effects of colour and size to each other. I am interested in investigating the colour contrasts such as red/green, or blue /orange ,yellow purple.

Mondrian

The gradual move away from representational work to the grid paintings that Mondrian is probably better known for, reveal a highly theoretical experiment with the relationships and interactions of colour and non colour.

Both Mondrian and Kandinsky were interested in the use of colour with an underlying spirituality associated with the individual colours. But both artists interpretations were completely different, with Mondrian approaching his works in a more objective fashion seeking to convey a pure abstract art free from human expression.

His grid paintings, where he used only the primary colours plus black, white and grey were a continuous quest to find harmony and balance using minimalist line and colour. The lines and the colours are balanced creating both positive and negative space, both mutually exclusive but are completely harmonious when viewed as a whole.

one of the finished abstract seascapes

Second attempt.

colour studies of two paintings by Barbara Rae .

1. Study of Fallmore 2010.

2. Tornapress 2010.

This is the finished abstract seascape, I have been inspired by the paintings of Barbara Rae and have tried to incorporate some of her techniques into the painting. I have incorporated monoprint to create some interest in the foreground. I used a print roller in places to spread and take away paint which reveals colour underneath . These techniques I feel have been successful and really helps to add interest to the painting.

However there are some things that I feel have not quite worked, the main question being is this really abstract enough? On one hand it is abstract in that it is not completely representational , but it is still immediately obvious what it is, so that begs the question how abstract do I go? If I was to take this further I could choose just a single flat plane of colour to represent the sea, the sky and the land this would be more in keeping with the works of De Stael. Perhaps to just work with the curve of the coastline would produce a more minimalist image . I am going to have another go as this first painting has caused me to question further ways of working with this idea. Colour has always been my main interest, so I am going to attempt to move away from that and try and present the seascapes in warm and cool greys.

My tutors comments on this painting have made me go back and do some more research . The comments that my original images were much livelier and the final painting was rather overworked . I can see this . I have reinvestigated Barbara Rae and have done a couple of small copies of two of her paintings in my sketchbook and in doing so am discovering that the brushwork is instinctive and this plays a major part in the immediacy and freshness of the image.

Also she has built up the depth of colour in al ot of her works by using thin washes of colour.

I am going to redo the painting again with a different palette and larger brushes...

My second attempt I have tried a completely differnt colour scheme. I particularly liked the colours that Da Stael used for his painting, Seaside Railway Line in the Setting Sun, and with this in mind I wanted to try a different pallete, using blues and oranges. I have built up the colours in place with thin washes similar to Barbara Rae and I have tried to keep the work fresh and instinctive, using a large brush and sweeping brushwork has I feel made the second image more successful less fussy. I feel happier with it as it has achieved a more simpler image that is more in keeping with the project aims.

Albers, J Homage to the Square "White Core" 1964

Mondrian, P Broadway Boogie Woogie. 1943

The artists Kandinsky and Klee, both from the Bauhaus, began to use colours to express feelings and movement rather than representation . Klee's paintings in particular are luminescent . His gentle watercolour paintings are both vibrant and exciting his use of colour was masterful, which is interesting as in the beginning of his career he considered colour to be no more than decoration and felt no need for its use in his work.

Kandinsky used colour as the subject of his paintings, often inspired by music. Probably his most famous colour study is, Concentric Circles, which is now such a famous image it appears on so many items its not unlike like the Mona Lisa in that respect.

If parts of a painting are equiluminant their positions become ambiguous, often appearing to shimmer or float. Many artists have experimented with this interaction with surprising results.

In Mondrian's painting, Broadway Boogie Woogie the yellow and grey squares have been painted with the same luminance(brightness) . The eye distinguishes adjacent objects if they have diferent levels of brightness, but because the yellow and grey are equiluminant the brain cannot position them accurately which results in the jittery motion in the painting.

Albers spent the majority of his painting career painting squares of colour inside of each other in order to explore how we percieve light and hues. He considered that the shape of a square was the most viable shape to study as its flatness and regularity was as far removed from nature as it could possibly be

The main intention of his Homage to the Square series was to create unusual and unpredictable effects. the subtly differentiated tones create distortions in size and his work has gone on to inspire many OP artists . He did not mix his colours he used them straight from the tube.

he quoted,

" I see colour as motion, to put two colour s together side by side really excites me . They breathe together.Its like a pulse beat .... I like to take a very weak colour and make it rich and beautiful or work on its neighbours . I can kill the most brilliant red by putting it with violet. I can make the dullest grey in the world dance by setting it against black...." Josef Albers 1973