Emma Gannon

Painting year 1

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Some quick hand studies over the last few weeks.

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Henri Matisse, Plate from “Passiphaé”, 1944

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Seen this and thought it resonates with the theme of connections. I also love Matisse’s work and connect with it...

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I feel like it’s definitely not finished or there’s something missing but I like certain parts of it!

I wanted a strong reserve line- with a overall strong yellow over the orangey red but I ran out of paint 😅 and the paper wasn’t great. But I like how the orange is still visible...

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Julião Sarmento, Mehr Licht 1985.

While researching Juliao Sarmento i found this specific painting really interesting - a collage of 6 connecting images.

The main image of a man holding a woman's neck is particularly ambiguous. It is unclear whether it is a gesture of affection or violence.

Its hard to say whether these images have any connection but the artist invites us to think about it.

i really like the college format he uses and how 6 completely isolated images can be connected in some way.

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Juliao Sarmento  (born 1948 in Lisbon)

Sarmento works across different mediums (painting, collage, drawing, sculpture, performance, and film). The graphite drawings emerge from a thick impasto.

Sarmento’s drawings are supposed to make you think, although, i find some of his work hard to connect with.

Women shown with their heads or other body parts missing have featured in many of Sarmento’s paintings. Sarmento said there “was no meaning behind” this but it feels poignant somehow. A lot of Sarmento’s work is ambigous and maybe and is a main theme a lot of the time.

  “ I am interested in open rather than closed images ...  After all, to be human is to desire, to constantly imagine or create what we cannot see or experience.”-(Sarmento in Neri and Sarmento 2003, pp.119–20.)

https://www.pilarcorrias.com/artists/juliao-sarmento/

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Taking inspiration from Julio Sarmento and Henri Matisse’S red studio. Not finished just yet.

Matisse used reserve lines which really liked in the red studio and wanted to attempt. Sarmento tends to isolate his graphite drawings ... he also usually doesn’t have the whole body in his work (I didn’t realise I left the head out like in many of his work. I wanted to focus on the hands)

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Henri Matisse The Red StudioIssy-les-Moulineaux, fall 1911

ref : https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78389

Seems simple at first glace due to the overall red colours. But is definitely more complex, due to objects he decides to highlight with colour.

Matisse highlights his painting, sculptures and some other details in the room. Perhaps to display there importance and therefor the rooms lack off importance.

I find the space  and perspective of the studio interesting. There is a corner in the back that seems to be missing and creating a strange illusion but really it is just an unnecessary line - or imaginations fill it in for us. 

I think his lack of line and lack of colour emphasises the importance of the line and colour he does use. It draws my attention and focus to what Matisse thinks is important or necessary in this painting. 

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Reposting as a single image.

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Some more on Don Bachardy

I really liked Bachardys black ink drawings but i found his coloured paintings really interesting. it some Bachardy balances his colourful flesh colours with neutral or black contrasts. He still keeps that loose effect. i love the contrast of think and line lines and how he fills in some areas and purposefully leaves the rest uncoloured. 

ref : http://www.donbachardy.com/

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Don Bachardy

1.Untitled VIII, 12 December 1985 2.  Untitled 1II, 2 January 1986 3.Untitled II, August 19 1985

Don Bachardy is known as a portrait artist. These 3 portraits are of Bacharys life long partner Christopher Isherwood, that lasted until Isherwood’s death in 1986. 

Bachardy uses black ink for lines and mark making. I liked the looseness and immediacy of his marks. although they look rushed every mark and line is vitally important to the portraits and captures him beautifully. I also find his use of negative space interesting. They seems like a very full images despite the few lines and empty spaces.

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A painting I did of one of the kitchen drawings I did earlier in the week. I used oils and charcoal.

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Some studies of our family table which I think responds to the theme of connections I’m exploring. There was also a poem by Seamus Heaney called sunlight/ mossbawn I thought connected to these drawings.

“And here is love

Like a tinsmiths scoop

Sunk past it’s gleam

In the mealbin”

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Walter Sickert 1860–1942 - Contextual

Ennui ,h60 x w44in. oil on canvas

The title Ennui means ‘boredom’ in french. Sickert specialised in painting portrayals of daily life. Use of somber colours and rough dark tones.

Sickert suggests the disconnected relationship between the figures by their lack of communication and their surroundings. despite being close in physicality the couple face opposite directions and stare into space. 

Sickert creates a suffocating atmosphere of boredom. There is no connection between this pair.

ref : The Art Book 1994 & tate.com

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Edward Hopper - Contextual

Automat 1927 ,Oil on canvas ,71.4 x 91.4 cm  

Stairway at 48 rue de Lille, Paris 1906 ,Oil on wood ,33 x 23.5 cm

Hopper is considered to be one of America's greatest modern painters. He responses to the human condition. His goal was to reveal the ‘truth about the  everyday and the interior life of ordinary people.’ 

Using light (beams of sun or moonlight) he exposes an isolated figure. common portraits of aloneness, the figure lost in thought and detached from their surroundings. and society.

most of hoppers work deals with the theme of isolation and a certain detachment from society which is very prominent to our society today in current situations.

Ref: tate.com / ALAIN DE BOTTON 

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Alberto Giacometti - Contextual

(10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and print maker.

Giacometti’s studied the the human condition and focused on heads that seem to ‘emerge from nothingness, appearing alone and isolated in space.’ - darkened and skull like - these figures where often painted at night in artificial light. he’s also known for his reduced colour palette.

Giacometti often used the familiar face of his brother Diego. this study, and continuous reworking of the image became an ‘object of investigation and discovery for the artist, who commented ‘When he poses for me I don’t recognise him’.’ ( it is strange and interesting how the familiar can transform into something completely unfamiliar.)

There seems to be a distinct lack of connection in his paintings, the subject looks far away and isolated.

“The poetic mood of the studio''s space is replaced by a forthright confrontation with a presence that dominates the space in front of the canvas.'' - David Sylvester

“I have often felt in front of living beings, above all in front of human heads, the sense of a space-atmosphere which immediately surrounds these beings, penetrates them, is already the being itself.” - Giacometti(Quoted in Sylvester 1994, p.34.) 

ref : tate.com   

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Some more hands - just really for the purpose of showing connection and touch.

There is such a focus on not touching things and washing your hands at the moment, understandably.

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Some quick drawings focusing on hands

I sketched my dad while he was planting some strawberry plants, focusing on the connection between his hand and the plant.