My work seeks to reveal the intersection where Philosophy, Astrophysics, Natural History, Geometry, Metaphysics, Cosmology and Art meet. I mirror what Anicka Yi says about her work, which also seeks to meld ideas, sensations and concepts from a vast array of disciplines including Science and the natural world: “that seems like a very maximalist approach, but I think we can’t really discount how we are influenced by all of these different systems and ideas and information.” (Yi, 2023)
I have conducted some research to find where, contextually, my work fits.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of artists amongst whose work my research is situated. They have not and do not influence my research or artwork – rather, I have stumbled upon them whilst trying to find and understand where my own practice fits.
For some of them, our choice in subject matter is similar, and for others, it is the feeling that the art evokes, the intent behind the work, or the entanglement with Science and Cosmology that makes our work fit together.
Artists whose art creates a meditative experience for their audience:
Katie Paterson’s art, like mine, “straddles that space where Science and Art meet.” (Katie Paterson Website Authors, n.d.). Whilst I would say that Katie Paterson’s work is more centred around our human, earthly experience of temporality and existence in the greater cosmos, my angle of attack is different in that I am taking a more non-anthropocentric/post-humanist approach, looking at beings and non-beings being in the universe at large, therefore looking from a wider perspective. It’s interesting to note that in one of Katie Paterson’s Artworks, she explores ‘time’ as it passes at different rates on different planets. (Katie Paterson Website Authors, n.d.). This view of temporality is a very earthly and anthropocentric one: one that assumes that earth time (i.e. how long it takes the earth to rotate around the sun in order to count as one day) is the benchmark against which to compare how long it takes other planets in our Milky Way to move around our Sun. It is this exact comparative depiction that I have argued against, illustrating how arrogantly anthropocentric our idea of time is – time as measured on a 24 hour clock only benefits one species on one planet.
So whilst the work of myself and Katie Paterson is situated similarly and would likely appeal to similar audiences, the fundamental belief system underpinning each of our work is quite different.
Carsten Höller “applies scientific curiosity to his work as an artist, exploring human behaviour, perception and altered states of consciousness” (Gagosian Website Authors, n.d.) to create immersive, alternative realities. He sees his work across Science and Art as an antagonistic relationship – he was frustrated as a scientist feeling that Scientists are forced to work in a very rigid way. “Rigidity as a scientist means that you should exclude yourself – exclude subjectivity. It’s not really possible.” (Gagosian Website Authors, n.d.).
Whilst his work is vastly different to mine, there’s a lot to be learnt from him around the immersive realities he creates in order to give his audience an experience. I too am attempting to draw my viewer into an otherworldly place that is so (positively) disorienting as to help them to have an out-of-body experience. This is akin to the feeling that Höller was attempting to instil in his audience in his installation entitled High Psycho Tank where viewers are invited to strip down and enter a floatation tank to have a meditative experience whilst on full view of other viewers who are able to watch the people having an experience.
It is interesting to note then, that the viewers that choose to participate become a part of the artwork itself.
Both James Turrell and Doug Wheeler work with light and space. Most notably, Doug Wheeler’s Synthetic Desert III (1971) altered the structure of the gallery including noise reduction in order to give viewers a calming sensory experience (Lakin, 2024). And so whilst my physical work – my artefacts – appear to be very different from those of Dough Wheeler and James Turrell, my goals of manipulating a gallery space in order to provide an otherworldly, out-of-body experience is similar to theirs. That is, our end-goals are the same.
Miya Ando is a visual artist whose work addresses temporality, interdependence and impermanence (Miya Ando Website Authors, n.d.). As my own work moves away from a figurative style and more towards more conceptually driven works, I can see clear parallels between Miya Ando’s work and my own. As my meditative practice deepens, and as it becomes ever more entangled with my art making, I am finding myself more and more drawn to more simplistic and peaceful compositions that are far more conceptual in nature.
In a similar way in which Robert Walter Irwin creates installations that alter the viewer’s experience of light and space (Pace Gallery Website Authors, n.d.). I too would like to draw the audience into an otherworldly space that alters their experience of space and time. A space where temporality and corporeality melt into non-existence and they are able to feel that they are a part of Source.
Artists whose work explores Cosmology:
Whilst the work of Vija Celmins doesn’t specifically zoom in on Cosmology alone, many of her pieces certainly do straddle that space between Science, Cosmology and Art. Celmins is best known for her wish to interpret three dimensional spaced onto two dimensional formats, with many of her imagery depicting scenes from nature, such as closeups of oceanic textures, or quiet, Scientific images of the cosmos. “As I was working with the pencil, I got into some of the qualities of the pencil itself. That’s how the galaxies developed.” (Tate Authors, 2024)
I really like how Celmins uses a method of ‘taking away’ to reveal a composition, as opposed to adding the medium onto the art surface. For example, Night Sky #19 (1999) “she covers the surface of the paper using the charcoal and removes areas with the eraser, exposing areas of the paper. The white areas reveal the radiating strands of the web of stars in the night sky. She said ‘I like to see the paper, because the paper is a player.’” (Tate Authors, 2024)
Taking inspiration from Vija Celmins, I would like to try this method. Charcoal is pure carbon, one of the building blocks of our cosmos, of our earth and of our human bodies. It is therefore an elemental material that I’d love to explore more in future investigations.
June Wayne was another artist that melded Scientific fact and investigation into her work. “My work method is the scientific method” June Wayne asserted. “Being an artist is a lot like being a detective. The task of the artist is always to notice, digest, and comment on what is going on. We do it whether we’re aware of it or not. My model has always been Sherlock Holmes. I am always interested in the dog that didn’t bark in the night. What does a negative shape mean? I want to explore the thing you don’t know about.” (Abram, 2024).
Inspired by June Wayne’s 3-dimensional paintings, most notably ‘Jev, Cognitos’ (1984), Bronze Byte (1982), and Anki Cognitos (1984), I began to experiment with my previously made paper-pulp ‘clay’ to create a 3-dimensional Mars-like surface onto a canvas that will later be covered with stardust (i.e. gold, silver, etc.).
Bang Hai Ja:
French Poet and writer Charles Juliet said; “Her paintings, with their soft and delicate colours, puts us in contact with the best part of ourselves, and also with those inexpressible truths that surround the mystery of life. Her search for what it is timeless and imperishable has led her into those states of heightened awareness that have taken her to the furthermost point of herself and have enabled her to fix on her canvases an infinitely subtle weave – the synthesis of all she has lived through, of what she is living through, of what she is reaching for. Her work, deeply rooted in silence, bespeaks asceticism, the long path towards simplicity and to that light which is given to those who are truly fulfilled. ” – ‘The spiritual dimension of the work of Bang Hai Ja’ (Banhaija, n.d.). Said Ja, “A grain of rice is produced by the work of land, water, light, farmer and wind and so forth. The food, in turn, makes me. Everything and every person you meet in this world adds up to me,” she said. (Korea Joon-Ang Daily Website Authors, 2018)
By this statement, it is clear that Bang Hai Ja also believes that everything is entangled and connected. She is taking everything into account as part of her wider philosophy, and this threads through her work. I feel that I am reaching for the same – a way to show audiences that everything is entangled and we are all connected and interdependent.
“Barbara Takenaga arranges the simple components of her dense, abstract paintings into stunningly detailed compositions that undulate, radiate, and recede in seemingly infinite space. Her dazzling repetition of forms suggests the inherent yet sometimes incomprehensible logic of both the cosmic and the cellular, while spontaneous twists and puckers preserve the elements of wonder and surprise. Crisp, saturated color defines each discrete element in the tightly woven, tessellated work.
In her artwork entitled Space | 42, a public project of an oversized mural depicting a digital print of one of her abstract paintings, Takenaga said that her work “depicts possibilities that are both abstract and narrative.” These include, “imagined landscapes, microscopic views, stylized architecture, mathematical diagrams, and ‘spacescapes’.” (DC Moore Gallery Website Authors, n.d.) In Takenaga’s work, there is often a sense of waiting, anticipation, or dread, as big shapes loom on the horizon, float overhead, fold or explode. Throughout, natural phenomena are often used as metaphors for the comic, cosmic, or catastrophic.” (DC Moore Gallery Website Authors, n.d.)
I too am creating imagined landscapes that straddle both the abstract and narrative worlds.
I also like the reductionist technique used by Callum Innes, who “exposed the fragility of nature in remnants of light by removing layers of saturated oil paint in repetitive gestures resulting in a “luminous” reductionist aesthetic.” (Lee, n.d.) So far there is no direct link between mine and that of Callum Innes, except that I find his reductionist technique to be fascinating and something that I’d like to try.
References:
Abram, M.B. (2024). “June Wayne” https://www.junewayne.gallery (Accessed 5 August 2024).
Banghaija (n.d.) Biography. http://www.banghaija.com/en/ht_blog/bio.html?ht_div=en_bio (Accessed 27 July 2024).
Cawdron-Stewart, R (2018) “Lynn Chadwick and the Vital Force” https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/lynn-chadwick-and-the-vital-force (Accessed 16 October 2024)
Centrobotin Website Authors (n.d). “High Psycho Tank” https://www.centrobotin.org/en/obra-carta/high-psycho-tank/(Accessed 17 October 2024)
DC Moore Gallery Website Authors (n.d.) “Barbara Tankenaga” https://www.dcmooregallery.com/artists/barbara-takenaga?view=slider (Accessed 17 October 2024)
Gagosian Website Authors (n.d.) “Carsten Höller” https://gagosian.com/artists/carsten-holler/ (Accessed 17 September 2024)
Kastner, J (n.d.) “Doug Wheeler” https://www.artforum.com/events/doug-wheeler-204393/ (Accessed 14 October 2024)
Katie Paterson Website Authors (n.d.) “Katie Paterson” https://katiepaterson.org/about/ (Accessed 23 September 2024)
Lakin, M (2024) “Doug Wheeler’s Celestial Wonder, Now Gallery-Size”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/arts/design/doug-wheeler-zwirner-review.html# (Accessed 14 October 2024)
Lee, D (n.d.) “Constellation: the ECA/MA CAT’s Spring Curatorial Programme: Contemporary Art and Modern Cosmology” https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/macat2022/the-projects/contemporary-art-modern-cosmology/ (Accessed 17 October 2024)
Miya Ando Website Authors (n.d.) “Miya Ando Introduction” https://www.miyaando.com/introduction (Accessed 15 September 2024)
Sawyer, M (2017) “From Kusama to Turrell, 9 artists who made perfect spaces for Meditation” https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-clear-mind-meditative-spaces-created-famous-artists (Accessed 6 September 2024)
Tate.org Authors (n.d.) “Explore the art of Vija Celmins” https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/vija-celmins-2731/explore-art-vija-celmins (Accessed 26 August 2024)
Yi, A (2023) Anicka Yi in “Bodies of Knowledge” – Season 11 | Art21. Available at: https://youtu.be/FGp8EKFUqko?si=T4xjt6AB4gdFEb9F (Accessed 5 October 2024)
Debbie New 