Recent work: the Cement Works, South Ferriby

The Cement Works, South Ferriby

Screen prints

After my research on the screen printing process and the work of Andy Warhol, I worked on a photographic screen print of the Cement Works at South Ferriby, which forms a dominant feature on the banks of the river Ancholme, at the outlet to the Humber. I learned the photographic screen print process and how to use the equipment.  I experimented using black and then different colours. The results were quite effective (see below).

I then decided that I wanted to experiment with the same subject matter, but using a different printing medium which would require the use of further skills. I also felt that the factory was very tonal, and so thought about how best to achieve that result.

Etching and Aquatint

The factory sits in a prominent site and can be clearly  seen from both banks of the Humber. Sometimes the tall chimney emits smoke which mingles with the light effects of the sky, especially interesting on a cloudy day. Its reflections play on the water beneath. I wanted to capture the sheer size of the cement works, its dominant silhouette against the skyline, reflections in the river beneath, and dramatic light within a cloudy sky. I wanted to contrast a different technique to the screen print to achieve this outcome.

Stage 1: Etching on a hard ground using a zinc plate

I thought that I could bring out more detail of the structure of the factory by drawing direct with an etching needle. The outline was very important, together with the shapes of the separate parts of the building. I also wanted to capture the overhead conveyor belt, with the light coming through the structure. These factors pointed to me using a hard ground on a zinc plate into which I could scratch the required details. I made a print which illustrates the outcome of this first stage (below).

I was reasonably satisfied with the outcome, as it achieved the dominant effect of the factory which I was looking for, and incorporated the required detail. There is less detail in places where I wanted to create tone, which I left blank to work on during Stage 2. However, there were some scratch marks which appeared on the production of the print, which I was disappointed with. I wondered whether the plate had got scratched while I transported it, but I had carefully wrapped it up. Talking to others, including the printing technician, I think that the cause was more likely to do with the initial cleaning of the plate and the product I used - the technician had had a similar problem recently. So, in the future, I will have to be more careful what products I use to avoid creating any scratch marks.

Stage 2 : Aquatint using Nitric Acid

To create tone, I applied a "stopping out agent" - straw hat varnish - using a paint brush in five separate processes. Using the paint brush, freehand, with no prior drawing created a  "painterly" effect. The first stage created white areas as the "stop out" prevents the nitric acid bath from penetrating through to that area of the plate. At the same time the acid reacts with the exposed areas to etch further into the plate at each stage gradually creating darker effects. Overall, the plate went into the acid for a total of just over four minutes, which resulted in black for the final etching process. The stages were as follows:

1. 3/4 seconds (white)
2. 5 seconds (light grey)
3. 8 seconds (mid grey)
4. 20 seconds (dark grey)
5. 3 minutes 30 seconds (black)

I made a first proof to check the outcome (illustrated below).

I was quite pleased with the outcome as on the whole it achieved my goals - the mass and volume of the buildings, details of the structure, tonal qualities and atmosphere. The scratch marks can still be seen, but are less evident after the application of the aquatint. I felt that the process had suited the subject matter, producing good tones and atmosphere and I learned a lot from the process which I can use in the future. I felt that it was constructive to try a different technique for the same subject matter, as it produced a totally different result. Being drawn by hand gave the etching a uniqueness which the photographic screen print lacked, to some extent.

Recent Works, Drypoint Etchings and Screen prints

Dry Point Etchings

I have been looking at the site at South Ferriby to examine what evidence exists to describe some of its functions as a channel for navigation. Apart from the locks and marina, there are a number of interesting items around the lock gates which indicate the importance of the River Ancholme, such as, small landing stages, bollards, ropes, chains and driftwood. I have used dry point etching and screen prints to capture some of these things which have been "left behind".

Derelict Jetty I, Screen print

Influences – Wyeth (subject matter), Warhol (technique)

Photographic Screen print in black, over-printed with colour

Derelict jetty II, Screen print

Influences - Wyeth (magic realism) and Warhol (technique)

Photographic screen print, printed in colour only to produce a “magical” effect.

Derelict jetty III, oil study on board

Inspiration – Wyeth, Turner, (light and technique)

 

Suitable for a larger oil painting

 

 

Derelict Jetty IV, dry point etching

Inspiration – Melvyn Petterson (dry point), Wyeth (magic realism)

 

 Abandoned Ropes, dry point etching on paper, using Perspex plate (Perspex gives a “cleaner” finish than aluminium)

Influences - Prunella Clough, Wyeth (subject matter/etching), Melvyn Petterson (drypoint)

I have transferred this image onto a screen print, with the intention of combining the two techniques and adding colour.

Driftwood, dry point etching on paper, using Perspex plate

Influences - Prunella Clough (subject matter/etching), Melvyn Petterson (dry point), Wyeth

The ropes and driftwood are from the banks of the River Ancholme, near the outlet to the Humber Estuary

 

 

Romanticism, JWM Turner and visit to Exhibition of works by Norman Ackroyd

Romanticism

Romanticism is a very different approach to the Realism we have just been looking at. It demonstrates the shift in attitude away from the dominant classical tradition which tried to evoke the landscape of classical Greece and Rome. In British art, Romanticism was embraced in new responses to nature in the art of John Constable and J.M.W. Turner, and it has a lasting legacy, even with contemporary artists. As Sharma points out, we are all influenced by our culture and the past.

 JMW Turner (1775-1851)

Andrew Wilton’s book, “Turner in his time” (2006 edition) examines Turner’s influence and his “endlessly innovatory career” (Wilton, p. 11). Turner often shocked his contemporaries with his loose brushwork and vibrant colour palette while portraying the development of the modern world unlike any other artist at the time. He was a strong influence towards Impressionism.

Turner’s later career is examined in the book, Late Turner: Painting Set Free (2014) which was produced to accompany an exhibition of the same name which I went to see at Tate Britain.

I have chosen the two images below to demonstrate Turner’s approach to Romanticism, and his later development of looser brushwork, attention to light and colour and the onset of industrialisation.

Norham Castle, Sunrise, 1845, depicts a romanticised vision of the English countryside, designed to vividly portray the natural drama and intensity of the landscape. Pure colours rather than contrasting tones express the blazing light as the historic building and landscape merge. With the inclusion of the castle in the background, it still bears echoes of the “Ideal” or Classical landscape of the previous era.

However, Turner was early to depict the onset of industrialisation.  In Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844, Turner captures the new means of transport, possibly symbolising speed itself, but also at the same time portraying the sublime elements of nature.

I believe that Turner continues to be relevant today. When I try, for instance, to capture fleeting clouds above a factory chimney, or reflections on the water, Turner’s brushwork and use of light is still a good reference point.

JWM Turner, Norham Castle, Sunrise, 1845, oil on canvas, Tate Britain

Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London

Norman Ackroyd R.A. (b. 1938) Printmaker

Norman Ackroyd’s work demonstrates many elements of the Romantic movement, and its modern- day relevance. I have been to see his major new exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, “The Furthest Lands”. Ackroyd has described how he is inspired by the most outer reaches of the furthest lands, which were once inhabited, but now deserted, and bounded by nothing but sea. He sees remnants of life long ago, fields laid out for agriculture, but now abandoned. (Interview: Ackroyd with Superimpose Magazine, 2011, vimeo). In this respect, he picks up on Sharma’s theme about the changing landscape, and human intervention.

His aquatint etchings capture the wildness of the elements, rugged rocks and dangerous seas, using tone and energy to great effect, such as his etching, Cape Wrath, Sutherland, below.

Norman Ackroyd, Cape Wrath, Sutherland, 2011, The Furthest Lands, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2018 , aquatint etching.

Conclusion

Through the arguments and examples set out above, I intend to progress my practice to the next level. I will build on the concept that the natural landscape has inevitably been modified by human intervention and culture. Using ideas and techniques that I learn from the artists I have identified, and by challenging what I see and depict, I will portray images that capture the essence of “place” through a range of paintings and prints.

Social Realism and "Urbscapes", Prunella Clough and Carol Rhodes

Social Realism

Prunella Clough (1919 – 1999) Painter and printmaker

 Prunella Clough had an acute sense of place and time. In her book, Prunella Clough: Regions Unmapped (2012), Frances Spalding charts Clough’s career. During the 1950s Clough concentrated on men at work in manual roles, reflecting the post-war industrial recovery and has been associated with the movement known as “social realism”. She focussed on the industrial landscape, scrap and then the post-industrial decline. She liked to say small things “edgily”. Clough was not only a painter, but also a proficient print maker, and worked with collage and “found” objects, sometimes from memory. Her working methods have been preserved in the Tate archives.

Her subject matter was often things that otherwise would have been overlooked. She liked the dilapidated and the scruffy and called her views of industrial and barren land “urbscapes”.

 Some typical examples are illustrated below, which conjure up images of walks on grey days by derelict, abandoned industrial buildings and canals.

Her concept of approaching insignificant things as suitable subject matter relates to my topic. It is often such items which denote the character of a place and give it individuality and character.

 

Prunella Clough, Cooling Tower II, 1958, oil on canvas, Tate Collection

Prunella Clough, By the Canal, 1976, oil on canvas, with cellulose wadding, Tate Collection

Prunella Clough, Corrugated Fence, c. 1955, Intaglio print on paper, Hargeaves and Ball Trust

Modern “Urbscapes”

Carol Rhodes (1959 -2018)

A more recent, innovative approach, with similar themes to those of Clough, was taken up by Carol Rhodes. Rhodes spent much of her childhood in Bengal and was influenced by that experience and the dislocation she suffered when relocated to the UK. She painted on small, square, meticulously primed MDF panels, which allowed her to achieve fastidious brushwork, rather like Wyeth’s.

Her subject matter takes on an aerial viewpoint of unpopulated landscapes, quite often with no horizon line. She focussed on a very particular type of view involving industrial estates, commercial depots, airports, urban car parks, quarries, reservoirs, and airports.

“They are places where the man-made meets the untamed landscape. Her paintings speak of man’s desire to govern the land: to flatten it and regiment it, to take stuff from it, store stuff on it, and dump stuff in it. They are landscapes that are made by us, for us, and they are, in every sense, about us.

 

(Elliot, The Scotsman, 8 December, 2018)

These sentiments echo Sharma’s arguments about Man’s intrusion into the landscape. Carpark, Canal, 1994, below, is typical of her work, as stated by the National Galleries of Scotland website, Rhodes “has created a body of work unique in contemporary painting”. Her work is a good illustration of an inventive viewpoint, together with unusual and distinctive working methods.

Industrial Realism L.S Lowry

Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976)

Lowry took a realistic, gritty approach to his environment. In Clark and Wagner’s book, Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life” (2013), (written to coincide with an exhibition I saw at Tate Britain), they make the point that,

“Lowry is a rarity in his century. In a sense he stands alone………He said it himself on several occasions, “My ambition was to put the industrial scene on the map because nobody had done it, nobody had done it seriously.”

(Quoted by Clark and Wagner at p. 37)

I have also watched two videos, the first a BBC Documentary from 1957 featuring Lowry himself, and the second, a Tateshot, 2013 (to go with the launch of the Tate exhibition).

In the 1957 film, Lowry was keen to point out that that he makes works from his imagination, based on direct observation over many years. He paints by “building up scenes from a blank canvas”, saying, that he depicts the Northern landscape “as I see it”.

This is an important point, because so many artists do not want to paint such scenes. They prefer, as Sharma says, to see only the picturesque.

Lowry’s paintings, below, show the doom and gloom he faced daily in his job as a rent collector. As T.G. Rosenthal points out, in his book, L.S. Lowry, The Art and the Artist (2010), Lowry is held in high regard for depicting the reality of his times and the cultural forces which existed in the northern industrial heartland. Most of the scenes feature landscape which is man-made, and the impact of it.

This aspect resonates with my images of the industry around us, and how it is often disregarded, despite being inextricably embedded in our modern environment.

L.S. Lowry, Street Hawker, 1929, oil on canvas, Private collection (Copyright, The Estate of L.S. Lowry)

L.S. Lowry, Industrial Landscape Wigan, 1925, oil on canvas, Private collection (Copyright, The Estate of L.S. Lowry)

 

 

"Magic" Realism and Andrew Wyeth

Building on my research into early forms of realism and the work of Gustave Courbet, I am now researching different approaches to landscape and how various artists have approached the topic. I am influenced by the writings of Simon Sharma, and wish to explore how I can best convey my thoughts on how human existence impacts onto the physical landscape. The American, Andrew Wyeth is a good example.

Realism: Magic Realism

Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

In the book, "Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic” (Knutson, 2006), Wyeth’s style, influences and methods are examined in a number of essays.

In 1943 there was a landmark exhibition “American Realists and Magic Realists”, devoted to artists who used,

“sharp focus and precise representation, whether the subject has been observed in the outer world -realism, or contrived by the imagination – magic realism.”

 (Quoted in Knutson, 2006 p.35).

“By concentrating on the outward appearance of a deliberately circumscribed environment, Wyeth construes a world that discharges its meaning through the most fleeting and elusive moments”.

(Knutson, 2006, p. 40)

In the examples below, I demonstrate how Wyeth captures the feeling of the coast or estuary in a very realistic way. Using smooth board, fine tempera paints and a muted palette, Wyeth achieves his detailed, evocative paintings. I have included Dryad as the look and feel of the aged wood replicates the character of the driftwood portrayed in some of my recent etchings.

Wyeth’s personal vision, choice of subject matter, and view of the world express his knowledge of, and passion for, Philadelphia and the coast of Maine.

 

Andrew Wyeth, Below Dover, 1950, tempera on panel, Private Collection.

Andrew Wyeth, Pentecost, 1989, tempera on panel, Private Collection

Andrew Wyeth, Dryad, 2007, tempera on panel, Private Collection

 

Simon Shama, Landscape and Memory

In his book, Landscape and Memory (1995) Simon Sharma argues that it is difficult to think of a natural landscape,

“that has not, for better or worse, been modified by human culture. Nor is this simply the work of the industrial centuries…….. it is this irreversible modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is the nature we have.”

 

(Sharma, 1995, pp. 6-7)

He captures the image of his argument with Magritte’s painting, La Condition humaine, below. What we see is a painting superimposed over the view it depicts, so that the two are indistinguishable.

 

René Magritte, La Condition humaine, 1933, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Sharma expands on this perceived illusion,

“and it is culture, convention, and cognition that makes that design; that invests a retinal impression with the quality we experience as beauty.”

 

(Sharma, 1995, p. 12)

Sharma illustrates his argument with the Yosemite Valley, USA, a place of sacred significance for the USA, and the example of Albert Bierstadt’s painting, The Yosemite Valley, 1868 (below). The area had already been occupied and cleared by the expelled Ahwahneechee Indians and penetrated by mining companies before it was preserved as a park and “wilderness”.

 

Albert Bierstadt, the Yosemite Valley, 1868, oil on canvas, Oakland Museum of California

However, Sharma argues,

“There is nothing inherently shameful about that occupation. Even the landscapes that we suppose to be most free of our culture may turn out on closer inspection, to be its product.”

 

(Sharma, 1995, p. 9)

Sharma’s book explores not what we have lost, but what we may yet find. It is an alternative way of looking, an invitation for reflection and contribution to self-knowledge. My practice will be informed by these arguments, about how human activity affects the landscape, and how the ideas and work of the artists I have selected relate to my work.