Today continuing to gather ideas and exploring observations and perspectives on the near shoreline
Georgia O’keeffe, has been an artist who has inspired me in the past and has now re-emerged within this present project. that deals with observations of ‘distant’ horizons, sea meeting sky and the ‘near’ shoreline. Aspects of O’keeffes work referenced here (see images) focus on how she draws our attention to details of flowers..she adopts a ‘magnified perspective,’ which I also intend to adopt when focusing on observations of the near shoreline.
O’Keeffes commented, “A flower is relatively small… everyone has many associations with a flower ..it is so small …nobody sees a flower really …we haven’t time… and to see takes time…[..] I will paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look.”(Britta Benke,1994,pp21-43,Benedickt Taschen Verlag GmbH Hohenzollernring 53,D 50672 Koln.)
Ansel Adams said of O’keeffe’s work “No one can look at a painting without being deeply affected.”
This is something I hope to achieve within my work connecting back to looking, observing and taking time to see what the shoreline holds, to ‘stand and stare,’taking in nature from a magnified perspective.
Looking back into a previous project I have now focused on ideas for lino cuts and paintings of sea weed (see images). Using primary source photos I have enlarged parts of seaweed using pencil and watercolour experiments that magnify and focus our attention on the forms, line, texture, and colours within chosen images. Over the next couple of weeks I intend to explore these areas within my work.
