Black Monday

Black Monday

Pittura, Architettura, Paesaggio, Olio, 45x35cm
If we think about the “death of painting”, then there is nothing more embarrassing and old fashioned than landscape painting. I wanted to combine this idea with the use of the caravan as a metaphor for melancholia. The caravan transforms a region of wilderness into landscape whether it is urban or pastoral. It provides a mark of civilisation and passes a comment on our relationship with the environment; it can also represent nostalgia for holidays or weekends away from the urban environment.

I then painted 100 monochrome compositions of a solitary caravan in the landscape, using uniform materials and techniques. It quickly became apparent that some things didn’t work and detracted from the melancholic aura and these were photographed and then destroyed.

The 8 successful works were those that made the viewer aware that they are looking at a representation or ‘sign’ and they have registered its artificiality. These paintings work on two melancholic levels; a depiction of the metaphor for loss (the caravan) and the process of making the reality of loss artificial by inscribing the idea of the loss in a symbolic space.

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Commenti 7

 Alessandra Lampiasi
14 anni fa
Fantastic work!Very powerful expression!
bernardino
14 anni fa
bernardino Artista
I LOVE IT!!!
Stefano Canotti
14 anni fa
Stefano Canotti Artista
very very good
paolo cervino
14 anni fa
paolo cervino Artista
very good!!!!
serena stevens
14 anni fa
serena stevens Artista
The comment was very true. I agree with you on the visual prozac. I've been rationalising my own need to paint landscapes in full knowledge that it's an old fashioned theme when I'd rather be working more abstractly/contemporarlily. For me, when the work teeters between realism and abstraction then something of critical validity can be sought in the universal connection between man and his buckling plinth. Thanks for the chance to discuss.
Michael Newton
14 anni fa
Michael Newton Artista
I think you are missing my point. I am referring to the dialogue about the "death of painting" raging in the 1980’s. Painting was supposed to have lost all critical validity and REALISTIC landscape painting was considered visual prozac to hang on the city wall, so the owner could imagine it as a window onto arcadia. These are NOT my views - I have stayed painting, and enjoy the countryside where life is pulsating below the pastoral vision. It was hard trying to express myself in 1200 chars ;o)
serena stevens
14 anni fa
serena stevens Artista
I beg to disagree. Landscape painting has just always been considered secondary to figurative work because humanity has always been obsessed with it's own image, psyche and actions. Until the 'landscape and depictions of the organic world' in painting become THE primary art form, which it certainly must in these precarious times, we will never take the earth we live on seriously. Good luck with your work, I very much share what you've expressed in the last paragraph of your notes.

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