Artist Research- Barnet Newman
Barnet Newman was an American abstract colour field painter, who worked a lot on large scale paintings
For example his Vir Heroicus Sublimis measures 2.422 x 5.136 m, which really is vast.
In his 1948 paper The Sublime is Now, Newman talks about “man’s natural desire for the exalted”, (Newman, 1948, p. 27) for a higher being or feeling. This is made manifest in his work by the size of the painting. “The hallucinatory feelings that the viewer experiences when looking at the painting close up give the viewer a sense of place and self” (Arya, 2013).
Instead of the viewer being directed at another world by a painting or narrative, “the true sublime is in the here and now” (Newman, 1948, p. 27). It is in the relationship between the viewer and the painting and the realisation of one’s own being.
The size of Newman’s paintings therefore acted as a kind of platform for the viewer. The size of the canvas allows the viewer to be peripherally engulfed in the painting. When this is the case whatever is on the canvas will start to change due to the viewer being overwhelmed by the abstract spectacle he is faced with.
Barnet Newman employed this technique to demonstrate his ideas of a contemporary sublime. However I believe this technique of encompassing the viewer in an image could have interesting effects on the work I am doing.
There would be vast difference in experiencing any of the paintings I have produced if the viewer were unable to see past the edges of the painting. I believe that lines and patterns would shift and appear very different when viewed at the extremes. (Close up and far away/ vast or minute canvas)
I thought about projecting one of my images onto a wall in the dark space, to try to give myself an idea of how the painting would seem?
Jane also had a suggestion where by I cover the back wall in the white space in paper and then paint over the entire wall, which would give the same effect.
I would really like to do something like this for the degree show and I think by testing first I will be able to tell if I would be worth doing.
