Hyeyeon .Chung
About Unit 2 Process & Critical Reflection
Introduction
Shift in Perspective: Exploring Landscape through Drawing
Reflecting on my journey from Unit 1 to the current Unit 2 of my drawing research, I see an evolution in my approach. What began as a simple endeavor to collect landscape paintings has now transformed into a deeper exploration of how we perceive and interpret the world around us through drawing.
Moving beyond the mere act of capturing what lies before me on the surface, I am now immersed in unraveling the intricate interplay between perception and landscape. This shift represents a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in portraying landscapes and how they shape our comprehension of the world.
In this critical reflection, I aim to document the evolution of my sources of inspiration and the evolving worldviews that have influenced my artistic journey. By delving into these personal insights, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of how my perception of landscapes has evolved over time and how it continues to shape my artistic expression.
Landscape Drawing, once a traditional art form rooted in realism, has undergone a remarkable evolution over the centuries. What strikes me most is the diversity of perspectives that artists bring to their canvases. Each stroke tells a story, each hue a reflection of the artist's vision. As I included myself in the rich perspective of landscape and art, I was captivated by the myriad ways in which artists perceive and interpret the world.
One aspect that fascinates me is the shift from the macroscopic to the panoramic view. In earlier times, landscape paintings often depicted vast expanses of nature, capturing the grandeur of mountains, rivers, and forests. However, as artistic styles evolved, so too did our perception of the landscape. The Victorian era, for instance, saw a renewed interest in intimate, detailed scenes, where the focus shifted from the vast to the minute.
Inspiration comes to me from various sources – from the works of the masters to the fleeting beauty of everyday life. I find myself drawn to the challenge of reproducing these scenes on paper, capturing not just their visual essence but also the emotions they evoke. Yet, in the act of reproduction, there lies an opportunity for reinterpretation. Each stroke of my pencil is imbued with my own perspective, my own understanding of the landscape before me.
Intuition plays a significant role in my drawing process. There are moments when I abandon the constraints of realism and allow my instincts to guide me. Black and white landscapes, devoid of color yet brimming with emotion, are a testament to this intuitive approach. In these moments, I find myself tapping into a deeper well of creativity, where memories intertwine with imagination and the boundaries between reality and perception blur.
But perhaps what intrigues me most is the reproducibility of landscape art. In a world where landscapes are constantly changing, where the passage of time leaves its mark on every tree and hill, art offers a form of permanence. Through my drawings, I seek to capture not just the physical features of the landscape but also the essence of a moment frozen in time.
As I continue my research, I'm reminded of the power of perception – how it shapes our understanding of the world and our place within it. Each drawing is a testament to the diversity of perspectives that exist, each stroke a celebration of the infinite ways in which we see and feel the landscape around us.
Way of Seeing
John Berger's major book, "Ways of Seeing," delves deeply into the complex link between perception, self-awareness, and viewpoint (Berger 1972). In this essay, I will look at Berger's convincing arguments, particularly the themes of self-awareness and perspective in the context of visual culture. Additionally, I go over my current art perspective and concept referencing some of my work with Eva Hesse and Robert Morris as examples. Lastly, I will outline my thoughts and notes for Unit 3 as well as the self-reflection on the previous units 1 and 2.
Fig.1
Artist: Axel Kasseböhmer (German, 1952–2017)
Title: Provence und Montaigne Sainte Victoire # 4,
2007
Water soluble oil color on hand-made paper
56 x 76 cm Framed/gerahmt: 79.5 x 100 cm
Perception is a subjective construct :
Berger questions the concept of objective perception, claiming that our comprehension of pictures is highly subjective. He believes that our cultural, societal, and personal origins influence how we perceive and interpret visual inputs (Berger, 1972). Berger's lens transforms vision into an active interaction with the environment, impacted by personal ideas, prejudices, and assumptions. Therefore, my art is located not too far from this point of view. According to Kim (2019, p. 69) Like other East Asian countries, Korea has a long history of painting landscapes with a focus on elements of nature like mountains and rivers. Thus, it is called Sansubwa, or “mountains and water” painting. Whereas Western landscape artists sometimes concentrate on the accurate and/or illusionistic depiction of nature, in East Asia, the landscape served as a codified display of the human perspective on the natural world.
Through landscape painting, artists have historically conveyed their innermost feelings, projected their ideas, and frequently made social, political, and artistic statements. My art practices mainly collect and reconstruct landscapes with my personal origins or perspectives on ink and linen cloth or paper, which deal with fundamental material properties, and reconstruct them into any landscape or sculpture of a landscape. I don't call it painting, I sure should name it drawing. To add to that, maybe my cultural background and my influence stayed quite a bit while studying Korean traditional painting (in ink painting). To me, it's a delightful and full world to capture and record my perspective or perception closest to drawing with the least purity.
fostering self-awareness :
The importance of self-awareness in visual encounters is at the center of Berger's philosophy. He urges readers to explore their own perspectives and biases while acknowledging the limitations and distortions inherent in our perspectives (Berger, 1972). By promoting self-awareness, Berger suggests that we can develop a more critical and discerning approach to visual culture, that is, one tailored to the complexity of representation. As such, the main concepts and processes of my work are sympathetic and hover between visual language and self-awareness.
For example, if I look back at Kasseböhmer's landscape series, I can connect it like this. According to Sprüth Magers (2014), this is how they explain his working world.
Kasseböhmer's unconventional painting style is the outcome of a protracted artistic evolution. At the start of the 1980s, the painter gained notoriety for his mysterious paintings that evoked fragments of famous pieces from art history. After completing this body of work, Kasseböhmer went on to make a series of images in which he overpainted large-format landscape photos until the underlying image was completely covered. Later on, he created a number of series with still lifes, trees, and seascapes as their main subjects. He also experimented with several methods in order to undertake a methodical inquiry into the possibilities of painting. A heightened consciousness of loss unites all of these programs.
The one hundred 'Walchensee' paintings, created between 2010 and 2012, employ a variety of techniques to investigate the potential of the visual space. Additionally, Kasseböhmer presents a variety of experimental methods utilizing combs, floor coverings, and other objects. This leads to a sequence of perspectives that whimsically imbue the surrounding landscapes with a visual language, alluding both to the tradition of landscape painting and the traditional understanding of a spiritual landscape. Because Kasseböhmer's work is serial in nature, he may experiment with all the many mediums, textures, and moods that are specific to paint and canvas, creating a plethora of links between the images.
Kasseböhmer's works step emphatically into the presence of the viewer as painted images, a visual experience specific and unique to painting.
Contextualizing Interpretation:
Berger emphasizes the significance of context in shaping our interpretation of images. He argues that meaning is not intrinsic to images but rather contingent upon the circumstances of viewing (Berger, 1972). By considering the social, political, and historical contexts in which images are produced and consumed, Berger invites us to critically analyze the power dynamics embedded within visual representation.
Robert Morris's multidisciplinary oeuvre, which encompasses everything from objects, sculptures, and drawings to performances, videos, and texts, has had a significant impact on artistic advancements since the 1960s. He was a prominent theorist at the end of modernism's avant-garde who came from Minimal Art. He separated himself from the autonomous aura of the object and from a strict definition of art early on, focusing instead on the process of artistic creation, which he exhibited as a crucial element of his works.
Furthermore, it emphasizes the institutional space's perspective on social issues in the outside world. Robert Morris provokes viewers' performative and self-reflective forms of vision through the particular spatial arrangement of his fragmented form.
Scatter Piece (1968), which is prominently positioned in the Garden Room at the start of the show, allows the visitor to manipulate how he views the pieces by moving about the room. The felt, copper, steel, lead zinc, brass aluminum, and other elements create a conflict between industrial and biomorphic materials. They also create a manufacturing site for sculptures whose arrangement responds immediately to the space it now occupies. The installation therefore represents a transient and malleable state of completeness. The interaction between places is the central idea in my work too. It is an experience that addresses how a utopian environment is shown, how space is rearranged, and how we perceive it.
Fig. 2
Robert Morris
Early Felts
Installation view, Galerie Philomene Magers, Cologne, 1994
Fig. 3
Robert Morris
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, February 10-Aprit 4, 2012
Another example and inspiration is the art of Eva Hesse especially the 'Expanded Expansion' of her work. This is how she is drawn.
Her work, says Briony Fer, Professor of History of Art at UCL and author of Eva Hesse Studiowork, was decisively her own, yet it was also shaped by a larger drive to reconfigure what innovative art looked like in the 1950s and early 60s. Rosen concludes, Her work is powerful because it's a communication. Part of what's beautiful about it is that it's an open reading. The best art is a communication to the person looking at it. Her work still moves people. Hesse started to explore latex as a material for sculpture, a substance used principally in manufacturing. Her work may have been based on the physical and her use of latex emphasised this skin-like, corporeal quality.
Hesse's work was widely emulated, especially in the 70s by Fiber Artists, (these days in American art, a dismissive term for women textile artists of the period). Hesse herself was not identified as such, but rather she worked and also competed with male artists identifying as Post Minimalists.
Words by Corinne Julius.
Fig. 4
In conclusion, John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" challenges us to rethink our understanding of perception, self-awareness, and perspective. Through his thought-provoking analysis, Berger illuminates the subjective nature of visual experience, urging us to interrogate our own perspectives and engage critically with the images that surround us (Berger, 1972). By cultivating self-awareness and contextualizing interpretation, we can begin to unravel the complexities of visual representation and develop a deeper understanding of the world around us. Recently, the traditional spatio-temporal framework of a single viewpoint and space has evolved. Present experiences are now injected into past memories, captured together to form a composite memory. Elements from the past, influenced by media such as photographs or videos, merge with the inner emotions of the present. This results in a collage that blends past experiences with contemporary feelings, creating a unique and dynamic new space.
Ultimately, this reconstructed space becomes 'mine,' yet it is transformed into "A Ghost Place"—a space that once existed but is now a memory, infused with emotions distinct from other moments. This process of reconstructing landscapes through the interplay of memory and present experiences opens up new ways to engage with and enjoy landscapes. It underscores the fluidity of perception and highlights the importance of multi-sensory engagement with our environment.
In this evolving landscape, the synthesis of past and present experiences mediated through technology can transform our perception of the environment. It allows for a richer, more nuanced interaction with the world around us. This approach encourages us to view landscapes not just as static scenes but as dynamic spaces that reflect our ongoing dialogue with memory, media, and emotion. Thus, the future of artistic expression and environmental interaction lies in this intricate dance between the past and present, offering endless possibilities for deepening our understanding and enjoyment of the natural world. By creating more immersive and personalized connections to the natural world, we can enrich our appreciation of it.
References:
Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books.
Daejeon Museum of Art : Hangukhwa, Mindful Landscape (2019) Daejeon: IUBOOKS.
Sprüth Magers (2014) Sprüth Magers. Available at: https://spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/axel-kassebhmer-100-x-walchensee-berlin/ (Accessed: 18 May 2024).
Fig.1 Available at: https://spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/axel-kassebhmer-100-x-walchensee-berlin/ (Accessed: 18 May 2024).
Fig.2 Available at: https://spruethmagers.com/artists/robert-morris/(Accessed: 18 May 2024).
Fig.3 Available at: https://spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/robert-morris-robert-morris-berlin/(Accessed: 18 May 2024).
Fig. 4 Available at: https://www.hauserwirth.com/events/symposium-eva-hesse-looking-back-at-a-voice-for-the-future/(Accessed: 18 May 2024).
Perception and how to see the scenery
여기에 써머쑈 리플렉션 하기
내 그림 윈도우 예시 및 낸시 홀츠 예시들며
The process of working is, for example, like, sitting in front of a canvas, appreciating the archives, and being a sensitive reminder of the visual, tactile, olfactory, and auditory conditions of the time when "I" existed. More than just the act of transferring memories, the amplified elements are transferred to the canvas. In this process, the intensely established landscape elements are distorted by memory through this process and reinterpreted into a new space with various color harmonies and techniques that express the underlying emotions of the 'I'. Recently, beyond the spatio-temporal framework of one viewpoint and one space, present experiences are injected into past memories and captured together.
In other words, the elements in memory are newly influenced by other media (photographs or videos) from the past when painting began, and the inner emotions of the present point in time are accumulated in a collage form. The main point is the process of combining the current new self influenced by various media into a new space created from the past.
In the end, the space is 'mine' but it is reconstructed into "A Ghost Place', a space that definitely existed but no longer exists, made up of emotions that are different from other moments.
Unknown photographer
Aerial photographs
1914-18
Copies of gelatin silver print stereograph cards
Museum nos. RPS.689 to 696, 698, 700-2019
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the
V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund
Pilots used aerial reconnaissance during the First World War to inform accurate mapping and combat strategies. Aerial stereo views, like these images taken during flights over France, helped locate camouflaged objects. The relief effect achieved by stereoscopy revealed hidden objects that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.