rework of rehearsal after degas.

turn the contrast up on your monitor.

'dark rehearsal'
2004
looped flash animation (29 kb)

a photograph of my oven clock after a power cut.
(in the dark)

'the warm little center that the life of this world crowds around'
photograph 2004

some paintings and photographs are already in the public spaces we visit.

it just takes a device to capture and frame them.

'isn't that the definition of a photograph?'

what i mean are images that mean more than just a composed photograph.

'who are you writing to?'

i saw this image during a cup of coffee in a town center and realising that everything I needed to make an image was already there, I just needed to define it.

the way people walked up and down the stairs whilst being back lit by the sun, they had no recognisable identity as they were just silhouettes.

who they were was expressed only in their movements.

sketchbook

'coffee shop'
digital composite from photographs 2003

the idea for 'rehearsal' lead directly on from painting 'moth'. i wanted to explore the movement of a figure and it representation on a canvas even further.

i filmed a video of a figure moving. i had an idea for how it should be represented, but i was unsure of the composition and placement of the figure within the canvas. for this i decided to appropriate one of degas compositions, so i could concentrate fully on the getting the source material and execution correct.

i have always admired degas use of composition. see how the work is based on degas here.

i broke the movement video down into about 60 frames and converted the images to slides. i could then project the 60 frames on to the canvas, using the projection as a rough guide for the placement of the figures.

the slide projector had a 30 second delay between changing each image, effectively breaking up the video into bite size 'paintable chunks', making painting from video more manageable but still challenging.

it would be a painting that consisted of many layers, so that the sum of the finished painting would hopefully unify into one total movement, made from many singular figure movements.

i started by painting the frames of figures in the background first. working forward, choosing when the figures overlapped what unified into one form and what stayed separate. when painting i feel there has to be room for creativity, room for accidents to happen and to take the work in a different direction.

half way through this piece i realized i had explored the image too thoroughly and manipulated it too much, prior to executing it. when it came to paint it, it became too much of a chore. there was no room for spontaneity left.

however i continued using the computer to finish the piece and it became my first digital work. the next step evolved into 'dress rehearsal'. a simple animation generated by a web script.

ultimately i would like to digitally manipulate each frame of a video, creating a total effect as described above.

painting with video.

sketchbook

'rehearsal'
digital composite from video 2002

'dress rehearsal'
animation 2002 (99kb)

i have always been interested with trying to represent an element that shouldn't be able to be represented on a 2d surface.

be it movement, 3d elements or something else.

i enjoy the idea that you can make something look alive on a flat inanimate surface.

this is a picture of mike. mike sat on a revolving chair and i took about 60 shots of him from each angle as he revolved.

the final image was a blend of all the pictures.

sculpting with photos.

sketchbook

'360'
digital composite from photographs' 2002

'trm' is a digital composite scanned from many paintings and composed into one.

the paintings were executed quickly onto blank black photocopies, some of which can be seen here and here.

the source for these paintings is from a video of a figure moving in front of a strobe light. hence the background was black (darkness) and the paint white (strobe light).

i was going to combine many frames from the video into one painting, however the individual frames were too stark to combine into one image.

so i painted the individual frames first then digitally combined the individual frames into one painting.

this is a composite of the more successful paintings.

sketchbook

'trm'
digital composite from several paintings 2002

this is the source image for the painting 'window' that i have digitally manipulated.

it is an image that i feel is no less valid than the painting.

sketchbook

'window'
digital composite 2002

'object' was my first mature departure from painting and it is from my fine art painting degree show.

'object' was meant to be like a museum piece.

it had four windows that looked into a central box, these were set at different heights. some of the windows were positioned so you had to bend down to look in.

when you did, an image of a figure was there bending down to look out of the box.

i wanted it to be like looking into a mirror, but instead the figure looking back at you was someone else.

the images were made the old fashioned way; by printing photographs on tracing paper and layering them together.

it kind of worked, but was more the beginning than the end.

sketchbook

'object'
MDF, photo transfer on perspex and light. 1998

i blame bacon for this one.

this is another image from my degree show. i blended several different photographs by printing them on tracing paper and lighting them from the rear.

i made it so you could adjust the level of light behind the image and in turn alter the image.

'broken down 02' is a rework from the three original images i used to create the tracing paper blend.

i thought it would be interesting to go over old ground and see if i could achieve the same or something different with new techniques.

sketchbook

'broken down 02'
digital composite (rework of image from 1998) 2002