Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Daily Practice 90/365

Title: "Abstraktes Bild"
(click to view larger)

One of the themes that I want to explore more intensively as I go forward with the daily practice exercise is the interface between painting and photography. I once did an installation piece which combined watercolour paintings with a grid of black and white close-up photographs of details of the paintings. I think I was inspired to pursue the idea from a piece I saw on Art:21 on Arturo Herrera, who makes photographic images of details of his drawings as part of his art practice. I've posted a few images in this blog so far as part of a developing series of "Topographic Notes" which borrows from that idea.

Today I made some images of one of my watercolour boards. The patterns of colour and shapes on the board reflect the history of many paintings that were made. There is a richness here that accumulates from that long history, a richness difficult to achieve in a single painting. The photograph removes us by one step from the painting and shifts our perception of exactly what we are looking at. I think it might be interesting to make some more close-ups and then print them out on watercolour paper and continue to develop the image with painting.

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