Post 48 - Preparation for Demo week
The Idea of the Pastoral Landscape and the Idea of Collage
Parks and Recreation
If concepts are my intentions, the ideas I am working with in the studio, and arise during the exchange of material enquiry in the studio, they can also arise in my self-conscious daily walks to gather information. My surroundings and sights that catch my attention are also materials perhaps, that can be pressed together to create meaning, (fig 1).
Fig 1
Park rewilding Auckland
2024
Constructs are largely invisible conventions - the implicit conditions of my daily encounters i.e. painting involves applying pigment to the canvas, (fig 2).
Fig 2.
tree/sky
collage postcard 2024
oil on paper and oil on unprimed canvas
The presence of multiple traces of time in the world around us can become referent of a visual language, things I see on walks can become the vehicle of an idea and not an end in itself. 1
The works are formed in the interaction with living spaces, in this I see similarities with assemblage artists, but instead of objects I’m collecting images, marks, ideas, and signs (fig 3).
Paul Klee's posthumously published notebook, The Thinking Eye, emphasizes visual thinking, describing drawing as a line that has been "taken for a walk" (cited in Spiller 1961). These lines connect ideas, establish clear relationships, and give rise to a diagrammatic structure. According to Tim Ingold, "The line is... between the finality of objects and the potentials of things..." (Ingold 2011: 18). This implies that the process of ideation through practice often hinges on an intermediate or "in-between" condition. 2
Fig 3
daily walk
Landscapes are more than what meets the eye, reflecting both natural and human histories. Our perception of them is subjective, shaped by factors like social, economic, and cultural influences. Three key attributes—biophysical elements, associative meanings, and sensory qualities—affect how we view landscapes. Natural character, as defined by law, assesses the naturalness of certain environments, persisting even in modified areas due to ongoing natural processes.
I also notice the qualities of landscape that occur in my work, just by using the colour green and dividing spaces, (fig,4)
Fig. 4
landscape
acrylic and ink on paper
Lee Krasner and the Pastoral Tradition
Collage served as a significant medium for American artist Lee Krasner in the 1950s. However, she faced criticism compared to her husband Jackson Pollock. Daniel Haxall highlights how Krasner's collages were dismissed as domesticated variants of Pollock's work. The continuing discussion of nature and its significance in contemporary art is central to understanding the modernist movement.
When responding to Hans Hofmann's admonition that he should paint from nature, Pollock supposedly retorted, 'I am nature'. 3
However, Haxall suggests looking at Krasner's art through the pastoral tradition, arguing that this viewpoint uncovers a deeper level of ambition and engagement in her collages, surpassing mere imitation.
“Krasner found her work criticized as a sanitized or domesticated (read pastoral) variant of his explosive expressionism. Yet, her collages juxtaposed the gestural with restraint, combining botanic imagery and natural rhythms with a well-cultured understanding of modernist painting. Thus, the pastoral might offer a means of reconsidering Krasner‘s work, because when interpreted through the role play and contingency of the pastoral, the discursive properties of her collages become ambitiously dialogic instead of merely derivative.” 3
Nature inspired both the imagery and structure of Krasner's work during the heyday of abstraction. Clement Greenberg, in “The Role of Nature in Modern Painting,” suggested that modernist art, starting with Cézanne and Cubism, organized the picture plane by simplifying and analyzing the natural world. Similarly, writer Frank O’Hara connected nature and Abstract Expressionism, and John Baur, while curating the Whitney Museum’s “Nature in Abstraction” show, noted that the New York School drew upon natural sensations. Influenced by Hans Hofmann’s method of working from nature, Krasner was aware of these discourses and integrated nature's cycles and rhythms into her art. She worked in cycles, reflecting the seasons, and recycled previous works for her collages, viewing this process as a form of growth.3
Krasner infused her pieces with the cyclical patterns of the natural world, as well as being affected by the environment around her in New York, for instance, "The City," created in 1953, (fig 5) captures the discord and tumult of urban environments through bold collage techniques. The piece, with its angular strips of black paper juxtaposed against vibrant red drips and squares, portrays the energy and perhaps violence often associated with city life.
Her deliberate engagement with art historical influences, coupled with acts of self-expression, positions her working with both tradition and experimentation. "Black and White," (fig 6), created in the same year, showcases her melding formal elements with personal narrative. The biomorphic forms and schematic stick figures hint at the female body, echoing the works of Picasso and Matisse while maintaining a distinctive Krasner touch.4
Works like "The City" and "Black and White" shows the interplay between nature and civilisation.
Fig. 5
City
Lee Krasner 1953
Fig. 6
Black and White
Lee Krasner 1953
Footnotes
J. S. Cabañero, "Symbolic Deterritorialization: The Case of Gabriel Orozco," Art and Design Review 3 (2015): 1-7, http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/adr.2015.31001 (accessed May 12, 2024).
Rachael Jones, ‘Visualised Connections / Material Knowledge / Imagined Landscapes‘, Research Catalogue (2020) https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1040934/1040935/0/0 [accessed 04/06/2024]
Lee Krasner, 'Interview with Bruce Glaser' 11967J, in K. Varnedoe and P. Karmel eds.,) Jackson Pollack - Interviews, Articles and Reviews, New York, 1999, p. 28.
Daniel Louis Haxall, Politics, Form, and Identity in Abstract Expressionist Collage (PhD diss., The Pennsylvania State University, College of Arts and Architecture, 2009), 249
Daniel Haxall, “Lee Krasner’s Pastoral Vision: Collage and the Nature of Order,” Woman’s Art Journal 28, no. 2 (Fall / Winter 2007): 20-27.
Haxall, “Lee Krasner’s Pastoral Vision,” WAJ 28, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2007): 23.
