tree painted without artificial light
oil on board
180mm x 130mm
private collection
What would a painting of an oak look like made at night with no artificial illumination, on a surface that would reflect less light than the night sky?
Because the eye's powers of resolution are so much weaker in low light I could not see the rough brush marks as I made the painting (in very low light the fovea has no information ). But as I painted, I saw an image materialising that looked like the tree - so this is a realistic image. But at sunrise the brushmarks become lies.
Because the eye's powers of resolution are so much weaker in low light I could not see the rough brush marks as I made the painting (in very low light the fovea has no information ). But as I painted, I saw an image materialising that looked like the tree - so this is a realistic image. But at sunrise the brushmarks become lies.
The picture has a message about experience and the limits of representation. It only resembles the original vision in a twilit room - an illumination with a much lower dynamic range than the screen on which you are reading this.
In daylight the picture shows a hidden truth. The facture (paint manipulation) forces you to see yourself seeing. Painting can render hand, eye and world as one thing : at once completely familiar and completely strange.
The painting shows the human animal trying to see a tree. The yellow dot is a plane going into Stanstead.
but the night shineth as the day:
In daylight the picture shows a hidden truth. The facture (paint manipulation) forces you to see yourself seeing. Painting can render hand, eye and world as one thing : at once completely familiar and completely strange.
The painting shows the human animal trying to see a tree. The yellow dot is a plane going into Stanstead.
but the night shineth as the day:
The Darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
Psalm 139.12
Psalm 139.12
On show at The Mall galleries, Sarah Armstrong-Jones selection, ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, Mall Galleries , London.