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| Concept of Examen: |
| My recent work has evolved from research into how we perceive, use, and come into contact with the landscape surrounding us. My interests lie in how we project our own memories and myths onto woodlands or trees. Reading literature on natural history has become an integral part in my practice, one of the most influential books being Richard Mabey’s "Beechcomings, The Narrative of Trees" that deals with the seemingly contradictory methods of how we treat the landscape and how we view it. Landscape painting has a long tradition, my exploration began with the Romantic movement of the 19th Century, focusing on the strong projection of our own spiritual ideals onto the vistas depicted and continued on to look at the critique of these views as sentimental and self-indulgent by contemporary artists such as Peter Rostovsky. My research focuses on the idea of transcendental quality in landscape and how it can be seen as an exploitation of these vistas for our own ends. I took a long look at Barnett Newman’s theories on inducing transcendental feelings within the viewer and came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to use my canvas as a tool to induce the concept of the transcendental. I want it to stand there for its own sake, as a painting, dealing with the materiality of the substance as well as an embodiment of a personal view of the landscape. I become far more interested in the myths we have surrounding our experience of landscape and how it doesn’t appear to be compatible with modern living. I was particularly influenced by the intensity of Peter Doig's ‘Concrete Cabin’ series in which the modern notion of utopia living has failed, becoming derelict, as the vast, alien forest has begun to reclaim the ground. |
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| Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts L |
| Geriant Evens |
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| http://rheaoneill.com |
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| Wimbledon Arts London |
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