Painting Invades Photography

Just as Vermeer and Canaletto adopted the technology of the camera obscura as an aid in imitating appearances  so have painters begun to colonize photography with the most antique technology of all, paint. I will be using  Adobe’s Photo Elements to illustrate how paintings can invade photography.  Before I present evidence of this new invasion of paint into photos  let’s consider the design structure of the paintings which I will use as my saboteurs into photography.  They are two abstract paintings in oil on aluminum     (36×36 each). The first  painting employs a serpentine or zig zag pattern which appears to unfold in a flawed set of rhyming zig zags back into the picture.  The sensation of space is generated not only by the gradually diminishing size of the unfolding shape but,  principally because the background color transitions  are complementary to the abstract shape and, the color/value transitions are edgeless.  Slow transitions of value or color,  (fields of color or value shift with no edges) always signal the brain that it is looking at deep space.  Edges  identify things,  flatten shapes  and provide occupants for space ( example 1).  Examples 2 and 3 are the same image as  it evolved. In example 2 I thought the background overwhelmed the vertical fan shapes so, in example three you can see I have expanded the area of the fan shapes as well as the shapes on the plane advancing toward the you/beholder.  I also darkened  the background to push the fan shapes forward and,  to provide more contrast. The darker background allows the lighter fan shapes to appear larger and more dynamic.

example 1.

example2.

example3.

Now, the invasion begins. I have in example 4, a photo of New York’s Times Square near the M&M  electronic billboards. In example 5 I have substituted the above abstract paintings of mine  in  place of  selected electronic billboards .  Using the  “Transform/Skew” operation in Photo Elements I was able to  contort my paintings into the proper perspective angle, angles which mimic  those of the pre-existing signs.   In this example I also blurred the faces of  two of the figures in the bottom so you would study more of the imagery above and not their expressions. In example 6, I present a photograph of the interior of Grand Central Station. In example 7,  I again “transform/skewed”  my painting(image in example 1) into a distorted perspective which would allow it to lie upon Grand Central Station’s  floor. I reduced the painting’s  opacity to further help integrate the image into the floor.  I cloned out  the painting’s edge lines where they fell upon figures and, sustained the line elsewhere to help reinforce the feeling of a  barely visible sight line.  Now the works have become painting/photo hybrids.

example4.

example5.

example6.

example7.

In conclusion, I wish to invite anyone interested in learning how to paint “Water”, its sensations of translucence, motions ( from tumbling streams to crashing waves to languid undulations), reflections,  and  shadow effects to  join me this Saturday May 12,2012 at the Silvermine Art Center in New Canaan, Ct.  for a one day workshop from 10 AM to 3PM. Call Silvermine School of Art at 203 966 6668 ext. 2.