Painting encounters with environments: experiencing the territory of familiar places

ABSTRACT

Paintings and other symbolised image systems contribute to the way we see and understand the world, however accurate or flawed they may be. My research contributes to this conversation by investigating how to make paintings that allow environments to be creative protagonists rather than passive objects of representation. I do this by drawing from the painting practices of Julie Mehretu and Ingrid Calame to look at how their work registers the experience of place and use these findings to guide my practice-based research, contextualised by ‘new materialist’ theory. The research shows how unpredictability in the process of painting allows the experience of place to be registered in ways that are responsive to materials and the site; how gesture is used to reveal something about the material and the immaterial world; and how the conversations happening between different levels of experience and modes of representation in the paintings help to yield a dense and complex view of place. Through this study, I have found that paintings can make manifest the relationships between process, gesture, environments and artists and in this way can reveal the experience of place in unexpected and multifarious ways.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• New-materialism
• vital-materialism
• painting
• gesture
• environments

Acknowledgements

I thank Dr Edward Hanfling for his insight, conversations and connection with my research (previously in his capacity as an Academic and Theory supervisor, School of Media Arts, Waikato Institute of Technology; currently, as a Lecturer in Art History and Theory, Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic Te Kura Matatini ki Otago) and Tim Croucher (Senior Lecturer, Painting, School of Media Arts, Waikato Institute of Technology) for his support, encouragement and depth of painting knowledge that he shared with me through our many conversations. Thank you also to Jules for your continual love and support and to Ella and Kobi for the vibrancy you bring to the world. Also thanks to Ingrid Calame, Julie Mehretu and the Marian Goodman Gallery for permission to use images of their work in this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In this study I used the approach of painting outside, a method that has its roots in nineteenth century plein air painting. Groups of artists in France, Italy, and England – the Barbizon School, the Macchiaioli Group, and the Newlyn School respectively – are widely recognized as practicing in this type of painting.

2 Abstract Expressionism included the approach known as Action Painting – a term coined by Harold Rosenberg – where it was understood that an artist’s emotional expression could be evident in the gestural marks, exemplified in the work of Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), Joan Mitchell (1925–1992), and Willem de Kooning (1904–1997).

3 While most obvious in Performance Art, this also pertains to the artists I am looking at in this research.

4 A walking-drawing is a method that involves looking at the place that you are walking around in while drawing, and not looking at your drawing surface much at all, like a blind-drawing.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amanda Watson

Amanda Watson lives in Whaingaroa Raglan in Aotearoa New Zealand and is a visual artist, educator and researcher. A combination of a love for the outdoors and a fascination of painting her experience of environments has grown her long-standing painting practice. She was awarded a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Elam School of Fine Arts from Auckland University where she majored in painting, a Postgraduate Diploma in Museum Studies from Massey University and a Masters of Arts with Distinction in Painting from the Waikato Institute of Technology. Her work has been exhibited and shared through exhibitions, awards, editorials and published reviews in New Zealand and overseas and accessioned into public and private collections.