_BergScapessss.... 2024
Mixed media drawing installation with tape, material-backed paper, newsprint, paint, pins, pencil, graphite, acetate, pvc, cellophane, marker, wood, plastic sheeting, picture cord, d-rings, watercolour paper
Gallery dimensions: 46ft x 20ft x 10ft
LInenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co Mayo, Ireland.
Photography by Paul McCarthy.
Gallery dimensions: 46ft x 20ft x 10ft
LInenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co Mayo, Ireland.
Photography by Paul McCarthy.
I made this site-specific installation for the Linenhall Arts Centre gallery space over a three-and-a-half-day period but it alludes to landscapes that have been millions of years in existence. I chose the title to reflect a landscape made of mountains, glaciers, ice and sea. 'Berg' is an old word for mountain; 'scape' originally comes from the Dutch word for shape (skip); and the “ssss' of the title makes reference to the sizzling sound made by glacier ice as it melts in the sea.
In this piece I wanted to generate an animated sense of flow - from snow-covered mountains to ice melting and flowing into warmer seas. Variations in scale are important: they allow for both close-up and distant views in the same piece. A sense of drift and transience were also crucial.
A work like this reveals itself to me as I construct it – I have a loose idea to start with but the component pieces don't always perform in the space as anticipated so it becomes a process in a state of flux mirroring the attempt to depict a landscape also in a state of flux. I tried to create a chain of experiences in the piece with both a visual and a sensual presence – mountains, snow and ice, icebergs, melt, warming and tropical seas are all invoked. (The arctic regions were once tropical many millions of years ago and polar regions generally are now melting at an unprecedented rate).
The painter Joshua Reynolds once controversially said of Dutch painting: ' ...whatever pleasure they give when under the eye, they make but a poor figure in description. It is to the eye only that the works of this school are addressed'. I'm taking the liberty of applying this last sentence to _Bergscapessss..... - it was an experiential piece "addressing the eye" that required the viewer to move around and actively glance, gaze and glimpse.
In this piece I wanted to generate an animated sense of flow - from snow-covered mountains to ice melting and flowing into warmer seas. Variations in scale are important: they allow for both close-up and distant views in the same piece. A sense of drift and transience were also crucial.
A work like this reveals itself to me as I construct it – I have a loose idea to start with but the component pieces don't always perform in the space as anticipated so it becomes a process in a state of flux mirroring the attempt to depict a landscape also in a state of flux. I tried to create a chain of experiences in the piece with both a visual and a sensual presence – mountains, snow and ice, icebergs, melt, warming and tropical seas are all invoked. (The arctic regions were once tropical many millions of years ago and polar regions generally are now melting at an unprecedented rate).
The painter Joshua Reynolds once controversially said of Dutch painting: ' ...whatever pleasure they give when under the eye, they make but a poor figure in description. It is to the eye only that the works of this school are addressed'. I'm taking the liberty of applying this last sentence to _Bergscapessss..... - it was an experiential piece "addressing the eye" that required the viewer to move around and actively glance, gaze and glimpse.
