For Day 2 of the ‘Palimpsest Brief’, I started with the media process of COLLAGE (cutting and glueing), which is both fun and relaxing. I then spent time using the process of photocopying and printing my collage.
After hunting, then gathering some interesting texts and images, my printed matter collection included an old book, National Geographic magazines, photocopies, receipts, laminated 2D shapes, newsprint, wallpaper, thin coloured card, Art Gallery pamphlets, catalogues, brochures, cards, ticket, receipts, brown paper bag, carbon paper, baking paper, tracing paper, laminate paper, and graph paper, etc.
First, I chose to cut up a very colourful artwork image (an A3 Art Gallery brochure on newsprint). I decided to glue my curve shape cuts onto an A3 art folder paper, instead of pinning to the wall. The reason for this, was that I wished to play around printing my collage on the photocopier machine, and because I wanted to cut fine, thin, curving strips, which would not be pinnable. Before I glued, I played around by shifting the cutouts, and by focusing on the negative versus the positive shapes to rearrange the assemblage. I added height and texture for a 3 dimensional effect by not gluing all the shapes flat, but lifting parts off the page, and linking shapes under, over, in, out and around.
Palimpsest Diagonal Wall Display: Left: 1. Original Collage: Cut and Glue / 2. Photocopy – Dark Colour / 3. Photocopy – Medium Colour / 4. Photocopy – Light Colour.
I chose the image below to create my first Palimpsest (the above collage and prints).
Katharina Grosse is an international artist from Germany, yet also has representation in New Zealand at Gow Langsford Art Gallery. I find her work very inspirational, because of her strong use of colour, clever concepts, and the extraordinary scale of her work. A conceptual artist, she creates work specific to the site, and uses an industrial spray gun method that envelops massive spaces, inside, outside and across buildings, and over landscapes.
Wunderbild is spray painted with acrylic, and displays a painterly, gestural and energetic quality. Her striking colour arrangement is juxtaposed against areas of unpainted stencil shapes, creating a spatial tension between the moving currents of colour and the flat white. The painting was completed in Grosse’s studio, and now hangs as metres of smooth, suspended fabric on both sides of the Grand Hall, at the National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic.
Grosse’s site installations below are spray painted with bold colour, and also utilise fabric, and natural materials like soil grass, and rocks.
Left Image: Katharina Grosse. Wer, ich? Wen, Du? / Who, I? Whom, You? (Installation View) 2014, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria.
Right Image: Katharina Grosse. Untitled Trumpet, Installation at the 56th Art Biennale, La Biennale di Venezia, All the World’s Futures. Photography by Nic Tenwiggenhorn.
Left Image: Katharina Grosse. Just Two Of Us, Installation Sculpture, 2013, Public Art Fund, Metrotech Plaza, Brooklyn, New York.
Right Image: Katharina Grosse. Colorizing Nature in Pink, 2017, ARoS Triennial in Denmark.
Left Image: Katharina Grosse. Picture Park, (Installation View) Acrylic on Mixed Media, Queensland Art Gallery, Australia.
Right Image: Katharina Grosse, Untitled Trumpet, (Close-up) Acrylic on wall, floor, and various objects, 2015, 6600 x 21000 x 13000 mm. Installation at the 56th Art Biennale, La Biennale di Venezia, All the World’s Futures. Photography by Nic Tenwiggenhorn.