Nicholas Wright

Nicholas Wright (1940) is a British dramatist. He opened and ran the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, was joint artistic director of the Royal Court and is a former literary manager and associate director of the Royal National Theatre. Other than a dramatist, he is also a sculptor who uses paper as well as lights to create contemporary art in form of light sculptures. He uses paper to create cut-outs of buildings and assembles them in a very dramatic way that when you put a light to it, everything comes to life.

I find this very interesting because this artist uses light to his advantage and creates something that wouldn't be what it is without this light. The image below shows a sculpture built around a lamp. When you light this lamp up, it becomes a scene of a large city.

For first impression of his work I was amazed by how much depth his work has and that he uses simple buildings and trees to create such an atmosphere.

His work itself gets me into a mood as if I was at the scene. The light creates a contrast and by using multiple layers of paper, he create tones and used it to change the brightness of the scenery. Everything is darker close to you and as you look at the horizon, the whole place is lit with light very similar to what you would expect if you were standing there.

What I like about his work is the feeling you get when looking at his artwork. It doesn't look like paper when you first glance at it. You only start to realize what it's made off after you finish looking around. 

As a response, I used one of the images I took in Piccadilly Circus and created a small paper installation on the style of Nicholas Wright, but with influence from Whistler. 

I took a piece of blank paper and drew the outline of the sky box from the image. I then stuck the sheet of paper to another and cut it out leaving me with 2 layers of paper that will go at the back of the response. I did the same for the lamp posts and the people at the front of the image. Nicholas focused on the detail of his sculptures, but since I wanted this response to be influenced bu Whistler, I didn't go for any detail and made it simple, but at the same time, I captured an atmosphere in the image. I took a photo of it during night when all lights were out, placed a torch behind the response and took an image. The response below was the result. 

I want to take this little experiment and carry it through to make a full response to Nicholas Wright himself because the one below was influenced by multiple artists. Also I will take the experiment I already have and produce a sketch while still capturing the mood and see if chalk can capture the same feel the response below did.

I realised that creating 2D responses to this artist will not be enough to fully explore it'spotentials. What I did was created a large installation where I used various transparent materials to create a small recreation of buildings from my primary sources and existing responses.

I was able to recreate the mood that Nicholas Wright has captured in his own artwork. I can that because each of those images give out their own impression and each contain their own atmosphere. You can also tell that each has their own perspective as well as different light which was achieved by using multiple cameras to record this response.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Swinburne (London, 5 April 1837 – London, 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form and wrote several novels. As a poet, he was known to respond to already existing paintings, but he would respond using a poem. One of his poems were inspired from one of Whistler's paintings and it was called - Poem- Before The Mirror. It is also said that Whistler responded to this poem instead of the poet responding to him, but it is unknown which is correct.

My idea is to capture the quality of light in a way to make it seem like an illusion. To make the purpose of this even stronger, I decided to widen my range of ways to look at the light around London. Poetry is a great way to describe something using powerful words that quickly trigger your imagination.  

I want to take this idea and go out responding to the light responding to poetry which is something I have never tried before and perhaps using different words to describe the light will have a different effect on how I end up drawing it.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (July 11, 1834 – July 17, 1903) was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo, "art for art's sake". 

Whistler’s paintings are usually subtle and sensitive, but his views on art were outspoken and progressive. He thought that painting should deal mainly with abstract qualities such as colour and shape, rather than with subject matter.

Whistler's work was usually called 'unfinished' or 'unrefined'. When looking at his work, you can see that it is indeed blurry and looks a bit rushed, but it's the opposite. The effect captured in this image is almost like the mood you get if you were the place yourself. The color and shape of the picture make you feel as if you're looking through someones dream and a big impact on this is the light used in the image.

My first impressions were similar to what some people call the work. "Unrefined", but that was just from the first glimpse at his work. As I looked deeper into it, I realised how abstract the piece is and how it quickly pulls you into the environment created by the artist in the painting.

The artist used color, texture, shape and tone as the main formal elements, but line is also recognised. The artist carefully distorts the color in the image making it feel very foggy and misty.

The reason I want to use the artist in my project is because he uses light is a very different way than most artist. He focuses on the light during night time and this is what I got interested in. Many of my photographs include scenes from night. Piccadilly Circus is very fascinating when you go there during night time and I want to create responses from that place during night using the techniques Whisper used in his paintings.

Responses

I wanted to use photographs that give out a similar feel to Whistlers work when creating response. The image below shows a tunnel area. It was distorted by the two lights at the top and bottom to cover the whole image in a coat of light. Whispers work usually focuses on the lights during night time so as a response, I used an image that would work well as a night image.

I used chalk to create the response. The photograph has a wide variety of shades which I could easily achieve using different shades of chalk. The biggest difficulty was getting the corners bright after I already used the dark shades.

I also took photographs of scenes similar to the ones Whistler captures using paints. The one below was taken right outside my window just before the sun set all the way down. You can only see a glimpse of the light in the background and this light gives a blurry outline of the trees in the image. Whistlers work mainly focused around shape and color rather than what was in the painting itself and in this photograph, I believe I achieved this very meaning.

Whistler would also say "As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, the subject matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or color". The quote says that what is important in the painting is not what you can see, but what you should be getting out of it. He looks at the aesthetic quality of what he sees. He takes out what is not important and leaves what he finds the most beautiful which is also something that I am doing with light itself. 

I used one of my paper cut outs from previous responses to Nicholas Wright and placed a light bulb behind the response. While responding to Wright, I used natural light behind the response, but this time decided to go for an artificial light which was a light bulb. I used more than one type of paper which allowed the light to pass the object easier with some materials than the other. It worked the best with tracing paper which was used as the sky in and sugar paper for the van and the people in the image. It gave out a feeling as if there was a sun all the way behind those buildings and also distorted it making the viewer focus a bit more on the quality of light than the actual content of the response.

While responding to Nicholas Wright using my large 3D installation,I decided to push that towards Whistler too. I went to Photoshop and experimented with the qualities of light in an image and was able to come up with some very interesting responses.

What I really like about these responses is that the viewer focuses on how the light effects the buildings rather than the buildings themselves. The light in these images is very strong and creates a nice contrast between the objects and the light as the buildings appear much darker and allow the light to stand out much more. I think those responses successfuly link to Whistler because they capture and demonstrate the quality of light and just as in Whistler's work, you want to focus on how the light effects the installation rather than the installation itself.

Links to artists

To me, Whistler is an artist who links with my theme in his own way. He works differently from the other artists and uses different techniques to other painters. The one thing I think links to others is the atmospheres created in his artwork. Most of my artists create a feeling in their work as if you're in a different place all of the sudden. Whistler created paintings the bring you into a very gloomy atmosphere and a similar thing happens with Manet's paintings. Both of the artists paint differently and have different intentions, but their work has the same effect on you if you're looking at them for the first time without knowing what they represent.

Whistler uses very little light in his work and it's pretty much the opposite of my other artists, Nauman and Flavin. They work with neon lights and create an atmosphere using a whole room using light.

An artist I think that goes between the neon users and the painters is Nicholas Wright who works similar to Whistler by creating a feeling that you're in a city and there is much depth in his work, but instead of it being a painting, it's an installation. It still however gives the same feeling you get when you look at Whistler's work. His work also might not use neon lights, but the work itself depends on light and without the light, he can't create the atmosphere just like Nauman and Flavin.

Royal Academy or Arts (Manet Exhibition)

At 15th of March, I visited the Manet's Exhibition at the Royal Academy of arts in Piccadilly Circus. I was looking at an artist named Eduard Manet who specialized in scene painting during the 17th century. 

The exhibition was not the most ideal for the theme I picked which is light because the artist mainly focused on people. I ignored the meaning in his work and focused on his techniques which I found much more interesting and related to my theme.  

(Below) The tragic actor - 1865 (Rouviere as Hamlet)

"Manet invited Philbert Rouviere (1809-65) to celebrate the actors retirement". 

When I look at the painting from up close, it feels as if I was at a photo session. The light that is built up behind the figure, makes him stand out almost as if he was standing in front of you. The background is blank with nothing to focus on other than the person in front.

We were not allowed to take any photographs at the exhibition which limited me to taking information as well as talking about the work from the first person perspective. I also drew some quick sketches of his work.

The work below is named 'Fishing' 1862-93. I wrote some first person experience comments while looking at the painting. What I saw in the texture of the surface, I wanted to capture with text and said "The dark forest near the bright hills with a glazing sun behind create a strong contrast in the painting. When looking at it from up close, you can take your time while exploring the piece as you get absorbed by every tiny detail of te painting. The color pallet is very vast and with such a large variety of color, the light and the darker parts of the piece can create a very real feel in the place". Although it doesn't look realistic when you look at it, the actual feeling you get is the same as if you were in the painting. 

The game of Croquet (1873)

"The painting rewards a contemporary bourgeois leisure pursuit"

When looking at this painting, I feel absorbed into it by the wide color pallet. The artist used several shades of green to create a very thick background and using some lighter shades, he created places where light would go through. The deeper you looked at the painting, the less light was going through the tree tops which made your eyes wander into the depths of the forest. 

Eduard Manet

Eduard Manet was born 23 January 1832 into the upper-middle class social circle he often presented his portraits and genre scenes of everyday life. Manet merged such artistic influences with his varied interests (Including music, fashion, literature and photography) to create innovative and distinctive portrayals of a city and society undergoing irrevocable transformations. In 1858, Manet befriended the poet Charles Baudelaire who came to define and essence of modernity in his 1863 essay.

Manet walked about Paris daily in the early 1860s usually with Baudelaire, recording its changes in his sketchbook (At his times, Paris was at a stage of a cholera outbreak. The streets were filled with dirt and Paris itself was filthy). Manet painted visibly solid strokes, suggesting from through blocks of color. In so doing, he draws the viewer's eye as much to the act of painting as to the depicted scene.

I want to use Manet's work not so much for the narrative, but more to explore the technique he uses to achieve the effect his paintings give out.

The reason I find this artist interesting is that he thought about how he wants people to look at his paintings. Instead of painting such as one of the impressionist paintings of Théodore Chassériau: The Two Sisters, 1843 which was a staged portrait, Manet's work is about capturing the moment which cannot be staged, but instead is captured within seconds and then coming back to it and refining it altogether. He achieves that by using simple strokes to add detail, but before that he applies thick blocks of color which makes the viewer's eye look deeper into the painting when detail is applied afterwards. The thick blocks of color simply give a 3D perspective when you look into his artwork. The quote "Manet's composition encourages the viewer's eye to travel across and into the canvas" (By Alison Bracker) means that the techniques he uses influence the viewer and completely change the way they approach the painting.
This links back to what my original intent is in this project. I want to change the way the viewer looks at something by using a different technique to what you would usually expect causing an illusionary effect. This then makes the viewer want to figure out the purpose and what the artwork is. 

My first impressions of his work were that it was just another artist who paints what he sees in front of him e.g. an artist who stages his work and the paints it, but as I analysed the artist and the meaning behind his work as well as techniques he uses, I recognised him as an incredible artist who's painting mean more when you look deeper into them and they were not staged at all.

My project is mainly focused around placed, installations and 3D in general. The painting above clearly looks 3D and the way the artist gets the effect makes me want to explore it more in depth. It makes the viewer want to explore it and look around t as you can't catch everything from a single glance. Although I do not want to focus on paintings in this project, I want to create responses from my sources using paints and this artist is the key to what I want to achieve in my responses. Many of my photographs represent interior places such as corridors. Using the techniques the artist did, I want to in-cooperate that in my responses to photographs from Piccadilly Circus and Balham.  

The artist uses tone, texture and shape to achieve the 3D-ness in his work. The shape of the brush strokes makes it easy to see the difference in tone and the brush stroke itself creates texture that fits the atmosphere in the painting. As you look deeper into it, you can see the strokes getting smaller until they're just dots. The artist makes the viewer's eyes travel across the canvas and look deep into it.

The mood created in his artwork makes you feel as if you're part of the artwork. You can look so deep into it, it makes it seems as if you're looking down a long path just as you would in real life.

The thing I like most about this image is that the way the artist painted it. He wanted the viewer to explore the canvas to it's fullest and that would usually be impossible on a flat painting, but the artist's technique create this very 3D effect on a flat surface.

One thing I do not like about this painting is the choice of color. Manet could have used a wider variety of browns when painting the buildings to make it a bit more colorful. The dull colors make the viewer not want to focus in the buildings as much which is the opposite of the artists intent.  

The artist's intent was to capture the moment of his life and only drew what was precious to him. He would ignore anything that is irrelevant in his memory e.g. in one of his artworks he drew a massive amount of people from a fair, but did not include the musicians because they were not important to him.

Responses:

As a response to Manet, I created a small painting in which I used thick blocks of color as well as multiple layers to create very dark solid tones. 

What I really like about this response is how the red flare gives an impression of there being a sun behind the block. It shows depth as well as a 3-D effect in the image because it makes you think that there is something behind the object. It is also something that Manet often did with his technique and I think this response has shown that very well.