‘Journey’ Pieces, Drawing and a Visit to Amsterdam.

A series of ‘Journey’ pieces has begun its development recently, stemming from my walk along the South West Coast Path from Falmouth to Durgan beach, stopping off at a few locations in order to complete rubbings, collect material (rocks, charcoal) and take photographs. Previously I have been creating works based around a single location, however with this piece I began exploring the idea of compiling elements from many locations along the duration of a walk into a single piece representative of that whole journey.

I massively underestimated the length of this walk to Durgan, barely reaching the beach before it got dark! Had I allowed myself more time I would've stopped at many more locations along the walk; unknown to myself before walking this way, there are many tiny, hidden beaches between Maenporth and Durgan that I could have included in my research, though the work that I managed to collect was still sufficient.

Some photographs taken at various points along the coast path to Durgan beach.

Rocks collected at Maenporth beach, sorted into different hues.

I completed an initial experimental compilation piece using canvas strips of rubbing/drawing/natural pigment from last year in order to explore layout and the general appearance of a collage style stretched work, something I have not explored before. Layout proved to be rather difficult to decide up on – with a long rectangle canvas the strips worked best going across the canvas horizontally, though this meant that the canvas itself was positioned vertically, not suggesting a landscape scene. Another reason I would have preferred a landscape oriented canvas is that, with vertical strips, as the viewer ‘reads’ the piece naturally from left to right they could follow the journey along the coast path when looking across each strip. Though, these particular strip pieces seemed to work best when displayed horizontally as they then gave a vague suggestion of landscape in their abstract marks. In the end I feel that having the main canvas portrait with the strips going across the width of the stretcher works best, though I can simply rotate the canvas if my opinion changes. Though the marks I have collected from the coast path walk are slightly more abstract so they may work as vertical strips across a landscape canvas.

This task of arranging past works made me look at them in a different light after being able to see them more closely. Especially after keeping this piece on my desk I glanced up at it a lot while writing my essay or this journal, each time noticing different details and seeing new shapes in the marks I had made; it made me want to recreate small sections of these rubbings/drawings on a larger scale, or to draw from these works.

I visited Amsterdam from the 5-8th of November, making the most of this short time visiting the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum, MOCO Museum and the Hortus Botanicus botanical gardens. Had I visited for a day longer I would have liked to have explored the Rijks Museum, though as such historical work is less relevant to my practice I prioritised the Stedelijk, the more modern/contemporary based large museum. The afternoon of the first day was spent exploring the vast Vondelpark and the sculptures dotted around it including Picasso’s ‘The Fish’, an enormous abstract form almost in the shape of a bull’s head, perhaps referencing the symbol of the bull used in a lot of Picasso’s work.

The Fish', Pablo Picasso

Day two involved a visit to the Van Gogh Museum, the MOCO Museum of street art, Banksy and Banksy-esque work and of course the obligatory snap with the ‘I Amsterdam’ sign. The Van Gogh Museum, though like the Rijks Museum in housing older works, was a vital visit. It was an amazing experience being able to be in a space containing such a huge collection of a single artist’s work, and also to learn more about his life and his use of painting almost as a therapy. However, the curation of this museum wasn’t the most effective, with many works, especially his portraits displayed in large glass boxes with another piece on the reverse. This method of display made it slightly difficult to really see the paintings and raised the status of some works higher than others, where it may’ve been better to display the equally and let the viewer decide which they feel is more resonant with them personally. Despite this the gallery was well worth the visit, even just to see this number of Van Gogh’s in person!

The Stedelijk, visited on day three, was a much more viewer friendly gallery, in particular the Stedelijk Base section which contained almost a timeline of modernism spanning from the late 1800s right through to/and into the contemporary period. The way that the work here was displayed reduced all of the pieces to an equal level, in a room full of so many iconic artists’ works, such as Rothko, Bacon, Mondrian and Van Gogh to name a few, the status of each piece was equal. The room was so packed with art that no piece was given the extra space to make it seem more important or valuable in any way and the viewer could feel they were worthy enough to stand centimetres away from an uncovered, unguarded Pollock.

Gallery-ed up by day four I visited the Hortus Botanicus, which despite my art practice not revolving around purely plants, being surrounded by so much natural material whilst within a city was very welcome. I took some time to complete a few drawings whilst sat on a sunny bench in the gardens, enabling me to really study the plants and how they moved in the wind – I even created one drawing that was a blind line drawing following the movement of a leaf blowing in the wind.

After my visit to Amsterdam, I felt the need to throw myself back into my visual work. I did this by, on Monday, creating over 20 very quick, gestural drawings using pieces of the charcoal found on Swanpool beach from my walk along the coast path on A3 paper. I have not created such expressive work in a long while and it felt good to just draw with such energy that afterwards I created a much larger drawing in this style, on a piece of calico roughly 130 x 150 cm. drawing without so much thought in each mark worked well to generate a large amount of source material in a short amount of time, with all of these pieces now up on my studio wall I can constantly pick up on shapes, imagery and details in them as inspiration for larger, more finished works. After making these pieces I have had the urge to attempt something similar on canvas, stretched and on a large scale like the calico piece. I have found a renewed love for the medium of charcoal and its gestural nature and look forward to using it in some new stretched drawings.