Majesty, 2006 Tacita Dean describes her process as ‘finding a thread and following it’. She started by taking old postcards and painting out the backgrounds to emphasise the trees, which inspired her to create a series of larger photographs of the oldest trees in Britain. Majesty is one of those works- a photographic print on three large sheets. She has painted out the background in white gouache. Her work references the traditional landscape paintings of the 19th century, however unlike the landscapes, Dean’s isolated trees are unaffected by their time. The work allows you to appreciate the shape of the tree in all of its nobility.
I like the effect achieved in the below work from Dean’s Painted Kotzsch Trees series (her own edited versions of damaged August Kotzsch albumen prints) and it reminds me of Mondrian’s tree paintings, and how the natural lines of the tree are accentuated. The extraneous detail is eliminated, keeping only its vital essence.
Tacita Dean
August Kotzsch
The Gray Tree, Piet Mondrian
With this in mind, I made some drawings and paintings of trees that I had photographed at West Park. I tried to eliminate unnecessary detail and i focused on the negative spaces between that branches since my interest is in the light that filters through the trees. I tried to find different ways of representing that light while keeping it as simple as possible.
Oil sketch focusing on light within the negative spaces
Oil painting using shading within negative spaces
Monoprints focusing on linework of negative spaces. I felt that this was the most effective in that it wasn’t as prescribed – it allows you to slowly interpret the meaning of the shapes. I would like to find a way to incorporate my ‘light’ theme though.