A mixture of photos, photo manipulations and digital art.

 Hi everyone

 I have, what I think is a nice mix of images in this post. I'm sure I've said the following before on this blog, however... If you take an object, for example, a functional one, or part of a ruined building, out of context, viewing it for it's shape and colour alone it can be seen as a work of art. Displaying unusual, or curious objects as ART, dates back to at least the 16th century. In the 1900s, artists began to include found objects into their own work, as an artistic statement. Nowadays, objects, or products with a non-art function, incorporated into art, are termed "readymades". 

Try this, look at, (say) an old door with badly peeled paint. Or a noticeboard with several layers of old posters showing on top of each other. Flick the little switch in your brain and imagine it with a frame around it, or perhaps on show in an art gallery. Do it a few times as you walk about, when shopping, or out for a stroll. You will find that part of your awareness of "things" has expanded.

The first image is dedicated to my friend Claire. Hi Claire, I hope you like it. It's the latest of my digital Op Art pieces.

Eastern Promise

I may as well stay with digital art for the moment. A couple of months ago, I was studying the De Stijl art movement, (Dutch for "The Style"). Ultimately, The Style became known as the Mondrian Style. I decided to try creating art in a similar manner. For those readers of my blog who may not be familiar with De Stijl, there is a nice introduction to it on Wikipedia at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Stijl

One of the people involved in the movement, was an English woman called Marlow Moss. She was quite close to Mondrian, (one of the founders of De Stijl) and was probably the nearest thing to a friend he had. She was an interesting person and artist, helping to take De Stijl to the next level. She influenced the direction I took with my De Stijl work. For those interested in her, I strongly recommend the following book, available from eBay and Amazon. It's cheap, nice, pocket sized book. The eBay link is below, copy and paste into your browser.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133681134006?epid=24034103247&hash=item1f200439b6:g:DF8AAOSwIa9gWU6d

The next three images are part of a set of twenty that I made. Sixteen of them are below in three groups, to avoid showing them all as separate images. My thanks to my friend Peter for suggesting it.

Six Linear Form Pieces

The next in this series is composed of three separate works. I started with the one on the left. Once finished, I decided to see if I could use the existing one, keeping all the elements of form and colour, evolving them into a new image. Once I'd completed the second one, I thought it would be nice to create a third, still based on the original image. When I was almost finished, I felt I should show some of the other colours used in later De Stijl work. I added sections in orange and green. Having gone this far, I saw that they should be combined as a triptych. I was very pleased with the result. Interestingly, a couple of people who have seen this one said it reminded them of Native American Indian Art. I can see why.

Triptych made from three Linear Form Pieces

The final ones in the De Stijl trio, were all inspired by Marlow Moss. Separately, each on them has it's own name. I decided to call the collection as shown below, by a single name, "Playground." The name was triggered by me having studied a selection of modern architectural designs for children's playgrounds.

Playground

Now to one of a series I'm working on called "Land Art". It's a bit of an arbitrary title, as the term already applies to the huge sculptures by artists like Henry Moore, Anthony Caro and others. In the way I'm using it, it really means objects I've come across as I'm out on photoshoots. They can be anything, from man-made retaining walls holding hillsides up, to objects abandoned or discarded by people. I created the image below, almost by accident. I came across a very long and high steel retaining wall by a roadside. I loved it straightaway, it reminded me of the sculptures by one of my favourite sculptors, Sir Anthony Caro. Once I uploaded the photos to my computer, I realised there was a set of images to be taken from them. I reworked them very subtly, keeping to their original appearance as close as possible. I chose the best and made them into a quadtych.

Four Variations on a Caro Form

A few more of my Land Art examples follow.

The first is one panel of an old door on Northgate, Halifax. There are several panels, all have become distressed by age. I'm going to go back to photograph some of the others. This one looked like a nice, textured, abstract painting to me.

Found Art Painting

The next is another Found Art painting. Again, I came across in Halifax. It was the bottom panel of an outside door, in an disused building. It looks like an abstract painting which has been left behind.

Ready Made Artwork

The next example of Land Art, is outside a small Tesco supermarket. I'd been looking at it for about 12 months, waiting for a sunny day, when there were no shoppers or cars about. Virtually all boxes like this - for electricity or telephone

connections - are dark green. The choice of this shade of blue, against the red brick was either a subconscious one by somebody, or a happy accident. I love this for what it is. I think it's an ignored, undervalued object, in just the right place. 

Blue Box

When the walls of old buildings start to sag, one way to give them structural reinforcement, is to use anchor plates. There are various names for these. Because they will be visible on the outside of a wall, many of them are quite decorative. A common one is a circular steel plate, in the UK these are known as "pattress plates". A few days ago, walking around the old parts of Halifax, I found two different pattress plates a few footsteps away from each other. One was simply a blank steel disk, the other is illustrated below. Having seen these two and also a cross shaped one, a star shaped one and a very ornate "S" shaped one in Norfolk, I decided I was going to see how many types I can find in my local area. I think I'm in danger of becoming an anorak. Oh no!

A pattress plate

Carrying on with Found Art, very near the place I came across the image above, I stumbled on the construction below. It was yet another, "I HAVE to photograph that" moment. It reminds me of the sort of work produced by the Bauhaus school. Simplicity. functionality and clean lines are just a few of the concepts behind their creations. The way the service pipes, cables, waste pipe, disused wooden plank and buttress on the right, are all set out, is to me, text book Bauhaus.

Bauhaus Lines

Now for two images taken from one of my Urban Exploration, or Urbex, trips. The first is very much a still life.

Bramble Sculpture

The second is a more dramatic Urbex image.

Neglect

Next is a selection of my recent works.They're a mixture of abstract, digital and photographic work. Some of the photos are montage, others, photo manipulation. Most of the following will not have any comments about them.

Geometric Fail

Liminal Gate

Green Demon

I spent a long time trying to get the next image to look like I wanted it to. I had one or two conversations about it with my good friend Roger. It was almost right, when I realised that the gates should look red hot at the edges of the mesh. It was the  final touch, a bit like the icing on a cake.

The Guardian of Hell

Crystalline Tree

The next one is a tribute to the abstract painter, Hans Hofmann.

Tone Poem For Hans Hofmann

Remember 1969?

Modern Architecture 1

The closing few images are all bright, or cheerful images.

Colour World Lilies

Carnation

Snow on Fall Spring Woods

She Tripped on the Pavement

A freaky one to finish with.

Windmill Stripes

And that's it for the moment. I have already decided on the content of my next post in a few weeks time. It will be all, or perhaps almost entirely all, photographs I've taken this year.

Stay safe everyone.

Gordon.