Some Place to Be Wandering

Instagram @kimbennickcreates

[kimbennickartist]

A picture of my major study exhibition. I really enjoy how the natural light plays on some of my pieces, which actually helps the viewer consider them more as individual objects rather than completely associating them to maps. 

[kimbennickartist]

Before final hand in, I was prompted to create a large scale piece utilizing my experiments with mapping and contour lines. I tend to work more condensed, because I think this gives me a greater sense of control within the workspace. 

This piece is just over 3 meters long and it was a challenge to utilize such a large space while maintaining a level of restraint that suits the expression of these contour lines. 

I think the final result is impressive and expresses a sense of motion from the lines and patterns. 

[kimbennickartist]

A selection of some explorations where I utilize the formats of maps and folded or rolled bits of paper to suggest topographical information. The act of folding a map and the shapes and curves of lines indicate to the viewer that they should be regarded as locative. That these object don’t clearly identify a location and encourages the viewers to make their own associations interests me. 

[kimbennickartist]

Contour lines

I find this image of a map from France interesting. It’s a topographical map and I’ve taken a close up of the contour lines, meant to identify elevation in the landscape. What I enjoy about these lines is the rhythm and suggestions of motion within the map and the location itself. 

One thing I have been doing lately is reconsidering the map and the idea of location separately from any attached associations to a place.

In the above piece, I replicated the format and folds of a map I frequently reference from London. I then drew a map line from an area visited in London and painted over that with ink and water. I experimented with how the pigment might leave impressions on other sides of the paper by then refolding the paper back down to resemble a map. 

What I find interesting about this composition is how the ink spread and dried, creating a mass in which the viewer might expect to see recognizable information. Because the mass is not clearly defined, however, and the lines have a ghosting effect where the pigment dried faster in some areas over others, situating the information is difficult. So the associations to both map and place are challenged and the result is an individual composition. 

[kimbennickartist]

The Big Problem

Below is a completed attempt about my experience in Berlin, based on tracings and studies from this post. The idea was to render a piece that reflected the mood of my experience and the fluidity I observed of Berlin as a city. 

Following the timed studies of this post and the limited palette of this post, I endeavored to create some of my explorations at a larger scale. The intent was to render something about my experience of a location that would envelope the viewer’s visual sense as I had been enveloped by the experience in situ. 

I consider both of these pieces to be interesting but unsuccessful. The problem I encountered was twofold. The first of these was the size required a more labored approach than their smaller study counterparts. In those, I was able to approach them with as minimal intervention as possible with water and pigment. The size also allowed me greater control. On a larger scale, the combination of water and pigment to paper became difficult to control and, as a result, the final product is more overworked. 

[kimbennickartist]

City Collections

In a previous post, I posted some select pieces from a collection of documents from my travels into London and Berlin. At the time of that post, I was concerned with how to use the collections in other works, which can be seen in this post. 

The thing I enjoy about the collections is how they are an expression of movement through a location. Because of that, they share a relationship to the location they come from.  

Ultimately, I decided that these documents were completed expressions themselves of my own personal experience within a location. In grouping them together, they form a kind of map, based on my own personal movement and associations. I have taken my collections from London, Berlin, and Edinburgh and grouped them into an accordion style fold-out booklet. The folded layout shares associations with a map, which I think will situate the intent in the viewer’s mind. The documents have no other indicative marks to the locations they come from other than where visible in the document. Some of the documents are folded and stored in such a way that there are no identifying markers at all, which challenges the viewer to consider it more as an object. 

This collection has encouraged me to reconsider how we generally regard both things as object and how they share a relationship to a place. 

[kimbennickartist]

James Abbott McNeill Whistler and the Nocturne series

James Abbott McNeill Whistler Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge c.1872–5 From Tate.org

I’ve been thinking about Whistler’s Nocturne series of late. I had the opportunity to view this painting at the Tate Britain’s “Painting with Light” exhibition a few weeks ago. It made me pause because his Nocturne series is such an interesting series that offers a sense of a place, which is one of the motivations within my practice, so I felt it important that I do a little more research into this series. 

Whistler's aim in these works was to convey a sense of the beauty and tranquility of the Thames by night. It was Frederick Leyland who first used the name 'nocturne' to describe these moonlit scenes, suggesting the concept of evening, or night, but with musical associations. The expression was quickly adopted by Whistler, who later explained,

By using the word 'nocturne' I wished to indicate an artistic interest alone, divesting the picture of any outside anecdotal interest which might have been otherwise attached to it. A nocturne is an arrangement of line, form and colour first (quoted in Dorment and MacDonald, p.122).

So in this series Whistler explored the arrangements of line, form, and color to give a sense of a place. This sounds exactly like what I am doing by exploring the lines, patterns, and colors that are associated with city life. 

Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights 1872 From Tate.org

It’s really interesting the way he explores these components to make up a painting, particularly in the one above. I enjoy how the colors blend into the horizon line and the reflective forms create an abstract quality about the place. 

Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket 1875; Oil on wood, 60.3 x 46.6 cm; Detroit Institute of Arts Frome WebMuseum

In 1877 the critic John Ruskin denounced Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875; Detroit Institute of Arts), accusing him of "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face", and Whistler sued him for libel the following year.

I remember learning about this painting in my undergraduate art history courses. At the time, I was a more subjective artist and less concerned with lines, patterns, forms and colors as the subject of my work as expressions of place. I can appreciate him better now, as can more contemporary critics, because I understand the motivations.  

Whistler's paintings are related to Impressionism (although he was more interested in evoking a mood than in accurately depicting the effects of light), to Symbolism, and to Aestheticism, and he played a central role in the modern movement in England.

[kimbennickartist]

Marta Spendowska

Marta Spendowska is an abstract watercolorist from Poland. I maintain that some of the most interesting watercolorists come from Poland.

In her current body of work, Marta depicts the colors, rhythms, patterns, and atmospheres she has experienced in America. She balances these compositions by incorporating visual references to her melancholic homeland, portrayed through more static organic forms in tones of black and white.

Abstract Lands: By the River that Eve 20′’ x 26.5′’ watercolor on paper

Marta has a variety of processes with her watercolors. Of particular interest to me are her abstract landscapes. Through carefully analyzing her own thoughts and feelings about a place, she uses pigment and method of application to render dreamy, but still substantial landscapes. 

Abstract Landscapes: Rivers 15′’ x 22′’ Watercolor 

In the example, above, for instance, is not a subjective form of any kind. The mind’s eye, rather, fills in the information for the observer. Her color palette is even an appropriate choice for instigating the impression of a landscape. 

In my landscapes I travel back to rural Poland and rural lands of Wisconsin which remind me of my childhood land that my beekeeper grandpa owned. The sentiment for dusk, fog and loneliness is always much more interesting than an orchestrated polished city.

In Marta’s series we see a limited palette, the darker shades creating the shapes and form and the bolder colors are used to assist them. This is something I’m seeing in my own work, as well. 

Abstract Landscapes: By the River in 1991 20′’ x 26.5′’ Watercolor

Abstract Watercolor Landscape Original: Polish Soil 15′’ x 22′’in Watercolor

Marta isn’t using any lines are shapes over top to add more visual interest. The watercolor shapes exist in and of themselves as an expression of a thought or feeling about a location, which is a quality I really enjoy. 

I’ve been having difficulty of late with using while lines over my watercolor shapes because I feel I sometimes miss the mark in the relationship between the watercolor drying pattern and the one I’m imposing over top. I think it’s something I need to experiment with more to see what works but I would also like to continue experimenting with rendering shapes and patterns about my thoughts and feelings of a location similarly to Marta.

[raelkieth]

[kimbennickartist]

I could easily imagine this photograph being translated into an abstract watercolor landscape.

[kimbennickartist]

Tracie Cheng

I came across Tracie Cheng in a pinterest search for abstract watercolors. Works that I was drawn to maintained a fluidity of the medium and attributed lines and patterns within the work that complemented rather than replaced emphasis. 

As the Day Unfolds 48" x 36" acrylic, oil, on wood 2016

Tracie Cheng does not, in fact, use watercolor! She uses an interesting mixture of acrylic and oils that makes them appear like watercolors. 

What I like about Cheng’s pieces are the patterns she overlays on top of the paint. 

The Great Divide 40" x 28" acrylic, oil, on wood 2015

They’re not patterns or works generated meant to evoke a feeling of place, like my intention, but the patterns and pigment share a relationship, which I feel is very important. Lines and shapes imposed in a layout just for the sake of generating a pattern just doesn’t work. To me, it’s like the relationship between people and place: patterns generated and embellished against ones that already exist for us. 

New Heights 40" x 28" acrylic, oil, on wood 2015

I think what’s interesting, though, is that whether they’re meant to evoke associations to a place or not, some of her work manages to do that. Perhaps it has a little do with the viewer being able to participate in observing the painting and placing the meaning behind that they need or want.

The Long Way Back Home 40" x 30" acrylic, oil, on wood 2016 

[kimbennickartist]

Earlier this week I did some timed pieces in watercolor, water soluble crayon, ink, and crayon. I did it in an effort to trigger some conversations for possible future pieces but, in general, it’s just a plain good exercise to do as an artist.  

There are some gems; my favorites are in the three bottom panels. I like the mixture of fluid watercolor application complemented by bold lines. 

Further from my last post, I feel that a limited pallet works best for me at this point. I am favoring dark hues with bold instances of brighter hues. 

[kimbennickartist]

Some studies in a limited palette of black and payne’s gray (a bluish hue) and some white acrylic ink. I really like how these play with the positive/negative space. These are inspired by the closes of Edinburgh and the point of them is to make them look like little glimpses into a kind of pocket universe. 

[kimbennickartist]

I think one of the least favorable qualities I have, as a person and an artist, is how bored I get of things. I must always be trying new things and be thinking about new projects that I don’t spend enough time on the concepts I have in the present. Because of that, I’m not able to work a concept to its full potential.

In an effort to stay more focused in this last term and really spend some quality time with some of my ideas, I’ve made myself a to-do list of sorts. I’m not trying to be formulaic, in fact that’s something I want to try and discourage as much as possible within my work, but lists help me focus on what is happening now rather than what I want to do for the future. Hopefully this will be a useful tool and I can see these projects to a completion and then come up with a new list.

[kimbennickartist]

Before and after of a study for a bigger piece I would like to eventually make. A bigger version wouldn't have the same patterns as this prototype, but the intended outcome for what this is about would be the same.

[kimbennickartist]

In the first term, I came across artists Katy Ann Gilmore and Jaqueline Diedam. At the time, I didn’t think their works would be an influencing factor but the theme of the second terms seems to be going backwards in order to move forwards. 

Gilmore uses a combination of geometrical shapes and sometimes watercolor to create topographical landscapes. Her shapes and lines create textures and depth, all rendered by variants of line. It is interesting, to me and my work currently, how she renders an objective shape from abstract lines and patterns. What is effective in her work is that her lines and shapes always have a relationship with the line that came before it. Gilmore’s process is very deliberate and enables her to create very intricate, yet impressive shapes. 

Diedam also utilizes geometric shapes but watercolor plays a more significant role in her pieces. Like Gilmore, Diedam’s shapes create patterns that mimic land masses. She follows the shapes, patterns, and lines made by applying color washes. Her color relationships are also very interesting. She chooses colors that are pleasing, yes, but they don’t always give the impression of bright or happy. I would go as far to say that her colors are the stronger part of Diedam’s process and the pattern almost secondary.

So here I have two artists that are doing very similar things - using lines, patterns, and watercolors to express something. What I love about these two artists is the clarity in the relationship between the shapes, pattern, and line that they are applying onto a surface. 

[kimbennickartist]

Notes on what I did for a particular piece. I have outlined what worked and what didn’t and why. 

I found this interesting to post because the notes in the first panel were written months ago. These things that I am interested in, and how they can be expressive of location in paths and patterns, I have seen come together within the last few months.  My City Collections are starting to become templates for me to use as ‘frames’ in my watercolor pieces. They themselves are an expression of transience, which is a concept I noted I was interested in. 

I feel as though ‘sublime in space of the everyday’ is expressed through the colors and patterns made with the watercolors. 

The personal world-view and cognitive mapping is a concept I am exploring through patterns and line. They are a kind of ‘mind map’ based on my observations of and impressions of a location. In particular, you can see how how this is articulated in my notes about “Choices” and how the relationship between patterns and lines are important to my future works. 

It is exciting to see seemingly unconnected things come together.

[kimbennickartist]

Sketching has become an important part of visualizing how I should first approach a new piece. Since I work in watercolor, I can’t sketch how the lines and patterns will dry for me to react to, but I can visualize how I should lay down patterns.

Based on the success of “Choices,” where I worked in one half of the frame of the paper, I’m considering doing some further experiments with blocks of colored areas and white space. The shapes are based on objects or areas within places. My thinking process is that the shape relates back to the place the painting is about, the colors with the emotion of that place, and the lines and patters would, ideally, draw it all together.