I have now completed the Canvas chapter exploring the wasteland from an artistic and painterly perspective - particularly revolving around Marcus Jansen's practice.
Jansen's conveyance of messages derives from the dynamism he creates in the visual experience. Distortion, expressionism and emotion are absorbed within his work to emphasise the subject matter which questions whether we are in the "midst of disassembling or rebuilding?" (Reaves, 2006. P82). His practice can replicate deconstructivist notions through chaotic brushwork which smothers or removes realistic semblances of forms in painted layers beneath and tearing out fragments of canvas. The paintings create an illusion of continuing beyond the confines of the frame, ignoring the boundaries to blur the real and the abstract which is reminiscent of Salvador Dali's surrealist landscapes, a notion explicitly defined in Sola-Morlaes' terrain vague. Jansen’s ideology in preserving memory of places juxtaposed against his desire to reveal a "subconscious that foretells a future of consequences" (Gawlicki, 2006) is conceptually similar to terrain vague. Jansen warns that progress for order can have a price (Gawlicki, 2006). When Jansen states (Paine, 2006) “I don’t paint in a calculated way […] I put things together spontaneously”, we see his spirit in painting more than his mind. Rapid and intuitive, the process is a result of his instinctual reactions to urban wasteland spaces. The violence of brushstrokes, textural changes and distinctive colour contrasts replicate Jansen’s interest in the forces that affect the atmospheric qualities of the compositional landscape, creating an explosive spontaneity. This results from his directness and raw emotive input. Jansen's dystopian landscapes, reflecting simultaneous construction and deconstruction, "typify contemporary life and interpersonal relationships" (Hall, 2014)) that bare spiritual wounds and apathy. They give rise to present discord and personal nihilism.
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