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ABIGAIL TOLLER
Michael Morgan
What first attracted me to Morgans work is his unique
style and great sense of place within his paintings.
Morgan says I like to think that the images I
ABIGAIL TOLLER
The structure of Morgans work is also key within his paintings, he often
uses buildings and trees is the distance to create depth in the terrain.
This forces the eye to become more involved with the piece. Form is
another crucial component in his pieces. Even within the rock like
foreground in Loneliness One the shapes that the watercolor makes
helps create this texture and adds to the mood of the piece.
John Blockley
Blockley was also a water colour artist and was Morgans main
inspiration for his work. Blockley, like
Morgan painted landscapes, however he
uses a more washy style. I feel it is
important to look into the works of Blockley to show how Morgan has
taken his technique and refined it into his own work. I like the way that
Blockleys colours merge and blend together capturing a transluency.
However I feel that Blokeleys image is a bit flat due to this watery
technque but despite this he has reflected the weather very well and
therfore captured a mood but not strong enough to really grip me as
much as Morgan,
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historic element of this landscape, the marks fade and are pushed further back through the layering of
the paint again conjuring this image of the past and memories. Thus linking back into the title
Quarry, usually an area of exploitation, this could show us images of former glory and beauty
indicated by the richer warmer colours in the back drop compared to the colder colours in the fore
ground, the use of gesso and watercolour combined to creating this smoother runny image in the
foreground to me resembles melting and draining of this natural scene. The house joins and almost acts
as a barrier between the intense richness of the oranges and deep greens and the icy tones of the
dreary greys and blues which again could feed into this image of human impact on an environment.
Finally I admire Morgans ability to see landscapes in different ways. In his work it is evident that he
looks at more than the conventional way of viewing a scene but instead looks deeper into the mood
and thought of a piece. To me this is most clearly illustrated by the way he can look at a landscape
from a different angle and perspective and use this to create a different scene showing a different
feel. In his piece Lighthouse Six Morgan originally intended for it to be a landscape of a hilly area.
However as he painted the picture it became more apparent that he did not feel that this worked well.
Through rotating the piece and adding extra a sea scape began to unfold in front of him. This ability to
change and work with the paint as well as the imagination shows a real point of identity, important to
all aspects of painting.
ABIGAIL TOLLER
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy is a landscape artist and environmentalist, whom I came across whilst reading one of
his many publications Rivers and Tides. I then encountered his work while visiting Yorkshire sculpture
Park. I was drawn to the way Goldsworthy works with the landscape rather than from the landscape.
He produces site specific art from nature and does not affect the surrounding environment in the
process. He says I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock,
stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of
life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue. The idea
that art is more than just the finished product is something where Goldsworthy excels, it is about the
ideas and thought process that has gone into each piece and what they symbolize. This sense of leaving
the landscape without permanently changing it is an aspect that really drew my attention to
Goldsworthy. This feeling of vulnerability is what I really wanted to capture in my Goldsworthy inspired
piece.
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ABIGAIL TOLLER
Hemali Bhuta
Bhuta is an Indian visiting artist who
created the work Speed
Breakers(left) for Yorkshire
Sculpture Park and the reason I
included her as a linking artist to
Goldsworthy is that Bhuta too is
interested in site specific art.
Bhuta likes investigating limited
spaces between the surface and
beneath, life and death and real
and unreal. I was captivated by the way she cleverly entwines the
roots she made into the earth making them hardly noticeable. This
subtly makes this piece even more intriguing showing how nature can
be so beautiful even if you dont initially notice. Bhuta said these
shallow roots seem to be transmitters, rising from one end and
submitting to the other, as though they are swallowed back into the land. They suggest a growth of an
unborn tree or one that has died. Like Bhuta, Goldsworthy has also explored this topic illustrated in
the above work Bones/Sand/Ball/Tide. The way they both use nature to emphasize the subtleties
and delicacies is something I have used in my approach to art work.
ABIGAIL TOLLER
Finally, my favorite aspect of Goldsworthy is his individuality. His love for the environment stands out
in all his pieces, each taking detail and care and most that do not have permanency in the way art
normally does. He opens the opportunity to question art in a more traditional form such as painting or
sculpture and this is why I have enjoyed reviewing his work. His originality really stands out and I think
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ABIGAIL TOLLER
his work called Gold Leaf Ring Trunk is an excellent example of how Goldsworthys work and the
meaning he tries to emphasize. In this work the splash of yellow leaves adds a burst of energy focusing
the eye into the photo. The fading out could be interpreted as life the cycle of life even though the
vivid colour does taper out the trunk still goes on. The way the photo is composed with the tree
almost running parallel with the stream creates movement and flow.
David Hockney
David Hockney is a name I have been familiar with since GCSE. My eye is drawn into his bold explicit
brush strokes and the vivid colour palates he uses. Hockney says drawing is rather like
playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you actually make .
This feeling of vitality is the most remarkable part of Hockneys work and drew me into being an
admirer of his work.
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ABIGAIL TOLLER
Hockneys most recent work of the Yorkshire countryside are the pieces I have examined in more detail
as I believe they have an affinity to my topic, especially as thy also relate to areas close to where I live
and resonate with me giving a personal connection. I love the way he takes exaggerated colour he
used in his Hollywood paintings and injected them into the Yorkshire countryside. What I found
interesting about Hockney after watching a
documentary about him is how he has taken
modern every day technology the iPad with
the app Brushes to record landscape
scenes while he is out walking. This is a
technique that I think would be interested to
explore. He makes bold marks in place of
his brush strokes, for example his piece The
Arrival of Spring demonstrates the use of
different technological strokes on the iPad
that adds movement giving life to the work.
The use of different tones helps to create a
depth which makes it more inviting. As a
viewer you are drawn into the composition
where the bright white of the distant path
juxtaposes with the dark intensity of the
surrounding woodland. He also uses layering
to create depth in the foreground creating
the illusion of density within the forest, and
there are reflections in the water created
through blurring the image. This creates a
real sense of time and place putting the
sketches into context of the broader
surroundings. This method plays with the
concept of traditional landscapes and art as
Hockney flips this and turns it into something
new and original, something unique.
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ABIGAIL TOLLER
Another interesting aspect of Hockneys work is the way he does them on separate canvases to create a
segregated picture. At first one could see this as discontinuing the flow of the picture. However I
believe this adds a flavor of excitement into his pieces. For example Woodgate Woods 21,23 and 29,
November 2006 which the mosaic style helps create a more special awareness in the piece. This style
also enabled him to step back from his picture and see it as a whole as well as focusing on detailed
aspects. He paints while he is outdoors from the subject which I feel is captured in all his works
including Woodgate Woods. You can see the vivacity in this piece which I feel can only be shown
when working from life as you are experiencing the feel of the landscape as well as painting it. Overall
I am trapped in Hockneys world of an older beauty of the landscape within a contemporary courageous
style. This looseness and textural brush marks is one thing I have tried to develop in some of my
studies to create an energy and movement.
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ABIGAIL TOLLER
Conclusion
In summary, Art and the Landscape co-inside with each other. Everyone can view the landscape
differently and use different methods and techniques to show a different view. This is shown by the
small selection of artists I have looked into here, each with totally contrasting perspectives yet all
working with nature to create a beautiful image of what to them the landscape means. It is this aspect
most of all which I hope to get across in this unit of work, a great love and enthusiasm for the
landscape via a wide range of different techniques to interact with the terrain. As Vincent Van Gogh
said I dream my painting and I paint my dream , without this passion and
imagination we would simply see a flat dull copy of what is already there.
Bibliography
Michael Morgan Youtube videos
stones Goldsworthy
the bigger picture- Hockney
the way Hockney sees it The daily telegraph
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