troll/trɒl,trəʊl/ verb carefully and systematically search an area for something.
Under the Postwick viaduct is a small area of urban heaven. The viaduct is about 600 metres long. It forms part of the Norwich southern bypass (which was completed in 1992) and carries the A47 road across the River Yare and Whitlingham Marsh.
It was a cold, blustery Monday morning in February when I visited it with the intention of making something but having no idea what. This was a new space, a new way of working but as a lover of the brutal and urban I immediately felt at home.
Whilst it’s fine to get close up with a macro lens it’s also important to step back and see the big picture. What was I here for, what did I hope to achieve? It certainly wasn’t sitting and drawing this amazing space, concentrating on perspective and realism holds no interesting for me.
“Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get to the meaning of things”
Georgia O’Keefe
I needed to set the stage for a session of not-knowing, to give myself perimeters that would allow for intuition and sponteneity. I decided to limit myself to one area, then one pillar, then finally one face of one pillar.
I had decided before hand that I would cut shapes to use as viewfinder to seek out and select areas of interest. This is something I have been doing for a while, most recently from large scale drawings that I have been taking into both prints and paintings. The process of cropping and selecting maintains energy and creates dynamic compositions. I find I can see it anew, see what it is and what it could be. My intention isn’t to scale up but to select further, maybe use two or three to inform another piece.
Whilst the wind was blowing I began to cut shapes and paste them to the pilar, isolating and selecting areas of graffiti, finding the found, the random, the accidental. Whilst intervening with the art of these unknown graffiti artists I wondered they would make of my interventions, how they would cover my paper viewfinders?
The very act of selecting and isolating was changing the status of the grafitti. It was becoming scrutinised, reflected upon, elevated. Order was being made from the chaos. I continued for a couple of hours, cutting, selecting, sticking and photographing.
Once cropped the photos lose both context and scale, they become compositions, art or at least sketches. The colours are exciting, the lines and textures are interesting, the long compositions remind me of both Len Lye film stock, and Leticia Deans installation in the Tate turbine hall.
Once you start to look, you find. The paste on the concrete floor made interesting shapes, and patterns; more compositions to select and record.
The experience and the results were exciting. I felt it moved my practice forwards, whilst enabling threads of selection and elevation, macro and micro, the abandoned and found to continue. I need to reflect on why physically placing a viewfinder over something is more potent than simply cropping a photo. I need to consider what I want to do with the images. But above all I need to do more!
- Georgia O’Keeffe; Circling Around Abstraction. exhibition catalogue Hudson Hills 2007 p22
This was a great read and so exciting to see what you can find through a view finder!! To me an uninteresting subject to macro gems of pattern and shapes and composition! I found this a real eye opener into looking more carefully as a landscape artist I do tend to focus on the feeling of the big picture in front of me(land or seascape) but i am also very drawn to textures and pattern and colour on details in nature like bark, lichen etc and can see a new way of looking!! Thank you oh wise one! Always a learning experience reading your blogs x
Thanks Rachel..😀 There’s a great book by Twyla Tharpe ‘The Creative Habit’ in which she discusses the landscape photographer Ansel Adams and his approach to both the big picture and the close up.. Sally (aka OWO😅)
Very interesting process and lots to think about. Reading your blog really helps me with my learning log thank you x
Thanks..writing really helps me focus on what I have done and what I could do? S
Very interesting Sally, those snippets in isolation are far more creative than the whole . Your view finders focus the eye in so it’s less distracted by what’s going on around . Excellent.
Thanks Linda..😀
What a great idea – is this an extension of found objects – but ones that can’t be moved? Have been asked to look at cropping for my own art studies but hadn’t thought of this approach – will start looking around through think Norwich might prove more fertile ground than North Norfolk.
Viewfinders seem to be rectangular/square wondered about circular, torn or more random shapes as well
Thanks Karen..yes.celebrating the found, abandoned etc. Hadn’t thought of diff shapes, thanks! My main concern at the moment is is it legal? I know flyposting as in advertising is illegal but is this, it’s just paste and paper? I wanted to leave some around the city…but🤔
If you need someone to bail you out let me know !!
Thanks!😂😂
The space ship has landed, bringing with it a humanoid with a new way of seeing! Brilliant, stimulating and thought provoking as always.
Fabulous Doreen😂 …
Upon reading the collage module on “found compositions”, I didn’t understand this until I linked to your blog & saw the photos. I discovered I have been doing this often with my own paintings for years. Thanks for the visuals!
😊😊
I found your blog very validating. As a photographer I have been taking photographs of graffiti and worn notices for years. I will be using some now in my collage projects. I’m currently doing the Gelli Printers Summit 2023 and have started one of your collage courses. I’m having a fantastic time!
Thanks! Great to meet you..