STITCHED WORKS
Using a sewing machine, fabric and paint on raw canvas, and inspired by aerial view landscape drawings, I invent these ’plots’ that are neither true abstractions, nor complete landscapes but navigate between interpretative poles. With a limited palette and through an improvisational approach, these works are large in scale and hint to an unfamiliar impossible space, a space that allows viewers to detach and contemplate their relationship to the external world. I seek to connect the dichotomy of the cold, analytical masculine subject with the appropriation of traditional feminine materials, adopting a sewing machine as a mechanically precise drawing tool.
The 'sketches' and 'doodles' are spontaneous pieces created with the sewing machine, where I'm manipulating the various stitches to loosely represent the abstracted vocabulary found in aerial view landscape drawings. These works are more immediate and less analytical than the ’plots’ series where I playfully explore the mark-making abilities of the sewing machine while still pointing to the linearity of my source. Small and intimate in scale, these works do not position the viewer to contemplate through detachment, but alternately offer a more personal relationship by inviting a closer interaction with the work.
BLUEPRINT DRAWINGS & PAINTINGS
A form appears physically abstracted yet remains fundamentally intact when viewed from the top. Figures become simple shapes and are reduced to their essence by the absence of all ornamentation. What’s left is a summary that provides a type of clarity that I'm interested in using to depict images.
Taking political images presented to us by the media, which are ironic at times and seemingly harmonious, I seek to observe them through a visual analysis and a process of mapping the scene out. My process is akin to an investigation: I investigate words, dates, images; some with humor, others more profoundly. The blueprint drawings help me to interpret these images and consider their underlying meaning.
The top view exploration continues through my work based on well-known classical and contemporary figurative paintings. I create an unseen dimension to these prominent works by drafting them as I would if I were designing a product or a building. I use what’s given to me by the original artist and simultaneously invent the space as if I’m constructing a 3-dimensional scene. I imagine myself as a fictional draftsperson of the painted scene. The blueprints I create could have, in my imagined scenario, become the basis of a plan for the original artist to use in creating a top view painting, utilized in the same manner a builder would in erecting a building.
My paintings are an interpretation of an imagined top view within existing paintings. Within each of my painting there are three distinct layers; technical form, abstraction, and painted detail that in combination create an oscillating effect between figure and ground. The technicality of the blueprints juxtaposed over painterly form creates a visual tension that halts the lyrical quality of the painting.
Using a sewing machine, fabric and paint on raw canvas, and inspired by aerial view landscape drawings, I invent these ’plots’ that are neither true abstractions, nor complete landscapes but navigate between interpretative poles. With a limited palette and through an improvisational approach, these works are large in scale and hint to an unfamiliar impossible space, a space that allows viewers to detach and contemplate their relationship to the external world. I seek to connect the dichotomy of the cold, analytical masculine subject with the appropriation of traditional feminine materials, adopting a sewing machine as a mechanically precise drawing tool.
The 'sketches' and 'doodles' are spontaneous pieces created with the sewing machine, where I'm manipulating the various stitches to loosely represent the abstracted vocabulary found in aerial view landscape drawings. These works are more immediate and less analytical than the ’plots’ series where I playfully explore the mark-making abilities of the sewing machine while still pointing to the linearity of my source. Small and intimate in scale, these works do not position the viewer to contemplate through detachment, but alternately offer a more personal relationship by inviting a closer interaction with the work.
BLUEPRINT DRAWINGS & PAINTINGS
A form appears physically abstracted yet remains fundamentally intact when viewed from the top. Figures become simple shapes and are reduced to their essence by the absence of all ornamentation. What’s left is a summary that provides a type of clarity that I'm interested in using to depict images.
Taking political images presented to us by the media, which are ironic at times and seemingly harmonious, I seek to observe them through a visual analysis and a process of mapping the scene out. My process is akin to an investigation: I investigate words, dates, images; some with humor, others more profoundly. The blueprint drawings help me to interpret these images and consider their underlying meaning.
The top view exploration continues through my work based on well-known classical and contemporary figurative paintings. I create an unseen dimension to these prominent works by drafting them as I would if I were designing a product or a building. I use what’s given to me by the original artist and simultaneously invent the space as if I’m constructing a 3-dimensional scene. I imagine myself as a fictional draftsperson of the painted scene. The blueprints I create could have, in my imagined scenario, become the basis of a plan for the original artist to use in creating a top view painting, utilized in the same manner a builder would in erecting a building.
My paintings are an interpretation of an imagined top view within existing paintings. Within each of my painting there are three distinct layers; technical form, abstraction, and painted detail that in combination create an oscillating effect between figure and ground. The technicality of the blueprints juxtaposed over painterly form creates a visual tension that halts the lyrical quality of the painting.
© Christine Gedeon. All rights reserved.